Listen: [audio:BaymeEllenson042507.mp3]
Steve Bayme sits down with Rabbi David Ellenson, president of Hebrew Union College, to discuss the tenets of Reform Judaism, tikkun olam (”repairing the world”), the role of Israel in American Judaism, and the former Sephardi chief rabbi’s recent indictment of Reform Judaism.

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As Israel celebrates its 59th anniversary, David Harris, AJC’s executive director, discusses what Israel means to him.
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When I recently asked some friends which chapter of Jewish history should be mandatory knowledge for all Jews, some chose the exodus from Egypt, others the establishment of modern Israel and some the emergence of prophetic Judaism.

I found it odd that no one selected the Holocaust.

Yet the Holocaust is precisely what American Jews have chosen. After all, Holocaust education permeates Jewish school curriculums, Holocaust museums have emerged throughout America, and Yom HaShoah commemorations, like the ones we will have this month, are ever-present. In turn, Jews, for whom Jewish philosophy remains untouchable, turn to the destruction of European Jewry as their dominant historical memory.

continue reading "Holocaust Memory and Jewish Identity"

AJC Executive Director David Harris blogs for the Jerusalem Post. From his latest entry:

A few years ago, the American Jewish Committee (AJC) was in extended, and ultimately unsuccessful, merger talks with another Jewish organization. During the discussion of what should be the name of the new agency, someone suggested it should be called Veterans of Jewish Wars (VJW). It got a big laugh, maybe because it struck home about the nature of Jewish organizational life.

My message to ‘veterans of Jewish wars’ [JPost]

Complete list of Harris’s blogs [JPost]