Big Tent Judaism

Renewing our Commitment to Inclusion

Karen Lee Erlichman of Jewish Mosaic, the National Center for Sexual & Gender Diversity, has been a Jewish communal professional for over twenty years. In the course of her career, she has experienced both an atmosphere of inclusion and an atmosphere of disconnection among Jewish organizations. In her opinion, she has experienced far too much of the latter. To inspire the changes she feels are necessary to create a “vibrant and welcoming Jewish community,” she took to the pages of Zeek: A Jewish Journal of Thought and Culture and offered “Ten Guidelines for Jewish Communal Life.” These guiding principles will help our Jewish organizations “survive and thrive” and “create a new covenant and organizational culture, grounded in relationship and mutual respect.”

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A Global Jewish Community

The Los Angeles Jewish Journal recently sat down with Israeli Knesset member Einat Wilf. To say we at JOI were enthralled by her positions on intermarriage, Jewish peoplehood and Jewish identity would be an understatement. For instance, she believes Judaism belongs “to the Jewish people as a whole” and that “all Jews are equal in their Jewishness.” When asked if her marriage to a non-Jewish German impacts her role as a public figure, she responds:

My view is if anyone sees it as a problem, they’ll just have to get used to it. Long before I married, I thought the Jewish world was making a big mistake in counting intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews as minus one, not plus one.

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Opening Our Doors to Those with Special Needs

JOI established the Big Tent Judaism Coalition as a way to bring together organizations across the globe that all shared a common goal: to create an inclusive and welcoming Jewish community. Specifically, this means doing more to welcome in folks who have traditionally experienced barriers to participation, including intermarried families, children of intermarriage, Jews-by-Choice, and LGBT Jews. That’s why we were excited to read about a joint effort by the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia and the Auerbach Central Agency for Jewish Education Jewish Outreach Partnership (ACAJE/JOP) to “make area synagogues, schools, camps and other communal facilities fully inclusive to people with special needs.”

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What to Say to the Rabbi

Today’s blog entry comes to us from Valerie Jones, a participant in our program for women Jews-by-Choice, Empowering Ruth.

Before my first meeting with a rabbi about converting to Judaism, I called my best friend. Overcome with anxiety about the meeting, I whined, “What if he asks me a bunch of questions I don’t know how to answer?”

My friend, who has a very quick wit, decided to coax me out of worry with humor. “Remember that episode of M*A*S*H when Radar had a date with a really sophisticated nurse but didn’t know how to talk to her?” she asked.

Of course, I did. In this classic episode (aren’t all M*A*S*H episodes classics?), Hawkeye and Trapper John coach Radar on answers to every scenario that might arise during his upcoming date. If asked about classical music, for example, Radar was to simply nod his head knowingly and answer “Ah, Bach.”

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Jewsbychoice.org

Jewsbychoice.org, an online resource devoted to issues relating to Jewish conversion, has recently undergone a major upgrade. The new Jewsbychoice.org website now incorporates some of today’s best elements of social networking, education and community blogging in a way that easily allows users to share experiences and talk about what it’s like to be a Jew-by-choice.

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