Join our Community
Support ToI and remove all ads
Learn more
Deborah Waxman
The Blogs
search
Deborah Waxman
The Blogs

Deborah Waxman

Apply for a Blog
Jan 24, 2023, 11:28 PM
A Clarion Call against Ethnonatioanlism
Recently I joined hundreds of fellow American rabbinic colleagues in signing a letter protesting the most hardline government in Israel’s history and pledging not to invite its most extreme cabinet ministers, including Itamar Ben Gvir and Betzalel Smotrich, into...
Dec 14, 2022, 5:07 AM
The situation in Hebron is Oppressive
Rabbi Deborah Waxman
A lifelong knitter, I worked on a sweater as the bus wound through the Hebron Hills to the center of Hebron. The bus was carrying CEOs of organizations of the Jewish Social Justice Roundtable, at the mid-point of an...
Nov 1, 2022, 8:17 PM
Ethnonationalism is a grave threat to democracy
As a rabbi, scholar of American Jewish history and communal leader, I look through these prisms and see a grave threat to democracy and am very worried. Ethnonationalism is surging around the world, fueled by economic dislocation and the pandemic...
Mar 14, 2022, 8:54 PM
Reconstructing Gatherings for a Hybrid World
More than 700 people attended Reconstructing Judaism's 2018 convention in Philadelphia. (courtesy)
From March 22-27, hundreds of Reconstructionists will gather in person in suburban Washington DC, and online for “B’Yachad: Reconstructing Judaism Together” a multiaccess, movement-wide convention. We come together with the clear sense that the world is changing and that...
Dec 13, 2019, 7:29 PM
Fiddler on the Roof and Trump’s Executive Order
When I first read about President Donald Trump’s Executive Order that would effectively, if not explicitly, define the Jewish people as a nationality, I thought of someone, a fictional person actually, who harkens back to a very different time...
Feb 26, 2019, 6:41 AM
Reconstructing Pluralism through Conversation
Pluralism is dead. Long live pluralism. American Jews helped to bring to life the 2oth century concept of pluralism, a key facet of civil society that is becoming increasingly endangered. Through intentional engagement with Judaism, North American Jews have the...
Feb 2, 2018, 3:06 PM
Featured Post
Why the Reconstructionist movement is rebranding
The Reconstructionist movement's new logo (Courtesy of Reconstructing Judaism)
Doing Jewish may mean attending synagogue, learning Hebrew, immersing in social action, or making ecologically-kosher meals
May 28, 2017, 6:58 AM
March on Harrisburg
Why are we on this planet? What are we supposed to do while we are here? How are we supposed to do whatever it is we are supposed to do? These are the big questions. Some of us spend much of...
Jan 31, 2017, 11:52 PM
Featured Post
Light through the cracks
Demonstrators protest President Donald Trump's executive immigration ban, at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois, January 29, 2017. (AFP/Joshua LOTT)
Taking comfort in Jewish resilience, human empathy, and community, as her beloved liberal landscape shifts underfoot
Oct 25, 2016, 11:15 AM
Featured Post
Jewish Nasty Women: We must claim our history to repudiate Trump
White, woman, Jew, rabbi, lesbian: Her own history illuminates an American democracy that demands empathy
Load more
About Me
Rabbi Deborah Waxman, Ph.D., is president and CEO of Reconstructing Judaism.