"The Future of the Jews"

The Westchester Jewish Council is inviting the public to join it on Thursday, February 28th for "The Future of the Jews," featuring Ambassador Stuart E. Eizenstat.  This special program will take place at Congregation Kol Ami in White Plains beginning at 8:00 p.m.

 

Ambassador Eizenstat is a former U.S. Ambassador to the European Union and has served under Presidents Carter and Clinton.  During his time in the Clinton Administration, he had a prominent role in international Holocaust restitution initiatives.  His new book by the same title surveys the major geopolitical, economic, and security challenges facing the world in general, and the Jewish world and the United States in particular.

 

This event is co-sponsored by the Five Synagogues of White Plains Israel Action Committee and Congregation Kol Ami.  This important program is dedicated to the memory of Charles I. Petschek, a dedicated Jewish leader for many decades, who passed away recently. 

 

The event is free, but RSVPs are required.  Click here to RSVP.

Judge Nixes Suit on Westhampton Eruv

From a February 11 article in the New York Post:

Here comes the latest court battle over religious liberty. Out in Westhampton Beach, Orthodox Jews are now taking a five-year legal battle to trial.

At issue are their plans to build an eruv, an artificial perimeter — formed by placing a string on existing wires — that allows observant Jews to perform some otherwise prohibited tasks on the Sabbath.
Even if you know they’re there, they’re almost impossible to spot. There are dozens of eruvim around the country, including a large swath of Manhattan.

But anti-eruv outfits, such as Jewish People for the Betterment of Westhampton Beach, claim that an eruv would violate the separation of church and state. Last week, a federal judge dismissed one such lawsuit, but two suits by the pro-eruv community will be argued by mid-April.

This isn’t the first time an eruv has been challenged on establishment grounds. Mostly, these challenges have failed, in good part because they mistakenly assume the purpose of the First Amendment is to guarantee freedom from religion.

As Eric Rassbach of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty notes, “The First Amendment doesn’t require us to tolerate speech — it requires us to protect it. The same is true of free exercise.”

In more candid moments, some eruv opponents admit that what they really fear is that an eruv would attract Orthodox Jews to their community. This, of course, is the same argument once used to keep African-Americans and other minorities out of all-white towns: There goes the neighborhood.

And it’s no less odious today than it was back then.


Matt Rainey/The Star-Ledger

An eruv marker on a utility pole

Secular Humanistic Judaism: Rabbi Sivan Maas Video

Faith Complex: Secular Humanistic Judaism

An Interview with Rabbi Sivan Maas

Rabbi Sivan Maas is the first female secular humanistic rabbi in Israel. In this interview, she explains her role in the community as well as the future of secular humanistic Judaism to Jacques Berlinerblau of Georgetown University.

http://youtu.be/OAobhoaOH8Q

Tell Congress: No Public Funding of Churches

Tomorrow Congress is quietly attempting to sneak through a bill that would allow federal grant money to go directly to the brick and mortar rebuilding of churches and other houses of worship.

Despite its unconstitutionality, lawmakers tomorrow will consider HR 592—a bill to amend the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, to allow houses of worship to directly receive taxpayer dollars.

There’s a reason houses of worship are prohibited. This bill would reverse years of Supreme Court precedent and directly conflict with the First Amendment to the Constitution. Additionally, permitting public grants for churches and other houses of worship would unfairly privilege religious institutions above secular institutions, many of which are not eligible for the grants. 

This bill comes two weeks after churches were granted special exemptions from a law requiring coverage of contraceptive services.  Churches are attempting to have their cake and eat it too. They want to choose when they must comply with a law and when laws must comply with them. 

Passage of the bill would create unfair advantages for religious institutions—and in effect, a government endorsement of religion-- because these institutions are exempt from paying taxes, offering financial transparency and filing the same paperwork as secular organizations, but would still benefit from public tax dollars.

Tell Congress, not so fast! Will you send a letter to your Representative urging him or her to vote no on this bill right now?

Act NOW before it's too late!
Urge your lawmakers to vote "no" on HR 592