Words of the Week

“Jews are a tiny population. And we keep finding ways to splinter ourselves into smaller factions.

If I could hit the ‘reset’ button for 5778, I’d make a plea for kinder disagreement.

We are split on Israel.
We are split on who is authentically or adequately Jewish.
We are split on whether women can be rabbis.
We are split on the U.S. president.
We are split on refugees.

And worst of all, we are split on whether we can even talk honestly about what splinters us.”

From Abigail Pogrebin’s “A Jewish Reset: One People,” in Hitting Reset: A Fresh Start for 5778, a booklet presented by the UJA Federation of New York.