All God’s Children Praised in The Forward

Dec 10: “The film could have painted a simpler picture of intercultural unity… But Timoner refuses to shy away from how difficult and emotional the work can be, which is what makes the film so powerful.”

Read the full review here.

Rabbi Timoner’s Rosh Hashanah Sermon Featured on The Promised Podcast

Oct 10 episode: The “Casting at Persians” Edition

Host Noah Efron says Rabbi Timoner’s “moving and unsettling” Rosh Hashanah sermon exemplifies how a spiritual guide really can make a difference in the world—making it “possible for us to hear things that, coming from someone else, we may not be able to listen to.” This part of the conversation begins at 59:00.

Rally for Ceasefire in Haaretz

Rabbi Timoner spoke at a Union Square rally last Sunday, joining protestors across the country to call for the return of hostages and an end to the war. As reported in Haaretz, they stood in support of “The Time is Now,” a major peace event held in Tel Aviv one day later.

Rabbi Green on WNYC

For a thoughtful and thought-provoking conversation about why this year’s Passover is  different, listen to last Thursday’s All of It, featuring Rabbi Green.

Rabbi Timoner opinion piece in Haaretz

Rabbi Timoner argues that Franklin Foer’s recent Atlantic piece about the end of “the Golden Age of American Jews” tells a dangerous story. Rabbi Timoner writes: “The way to safety and freedom for American Jews cannot be backward. It must be forward, to the next wave of liberal democracy that includes us all.”

Israelis for Peace protest in Union Square

March 3rd’s Israelis for Peace protest in Union Square was featured in this Forward article, including photographs of Rabbi Timoner lifting a bullhorn to say that although she supports Israel’s right to defend itself, “continued war and Israeli occupation of Gaza will be an unmitigated disaster” and “a bilateral ceasefire with hostage and prisoner release has never been more urgent.”

Rabbi Timoner featured in Gay City News

“It’s important for a lot of CBE members to care about both people — the lives of Israelis and Palestinians — and care about the rights and the future of those people,” Rabbi Timoner said in an interview about the post-October 7 moment.

Long-time CBE Members Featured on “This is Love” Podcast

Yasher koach to beloved CBE members Jules and Julianne Hirsh, who were featured in the newest episode of the podcast “This is Love”. Jules and Julianne have been members since 1967, and Jules is a two-term past president and CBE’s longest running baal tekiah (shofar sounder) for the High Holy Days. The episode features Julianne’s second bat mitzvah this past June, as well as wisdom from Rabbi Rachel Timoner on the importance of celebrating milestones during the second half of our lives. Listen here.

CBE Co-Establishes First Reform Chevra Kadisha in NYC

“Together, we are learning and embracing this most sacred mitzvah of caring for the dead,” said Rabbi Rachel Timoner of Congregation Beth Elohim. “At the same time, we have been developing our own rituals to be mindful and respectful of the multiplicity of gender identities.”

For the past several months, CBE has been in the process of establishing the first Reform chevra kadisha (burial society) in NYC with co-partners Plaza Jewish Community Chapel, Temple Shaaray Tefila, and Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion. Many of our members have become volunteers. Read The Forward‘s coverage here.

Rabbi Stephanie Kolin Co-Chairing National Conference of the Multi-Faith Initiative to End Mass Incarceration

This week, Rabbi Kolin is co-chairing and presenting at the Multi-faith Initiative to End Mass Incarceration “Let My People Go” Conference. The conference is held at the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, GA, and other speakers include Dr. Raphael Warnock. Rabbi Kolin’s plenary topic will be on the campaign to close Rikers.

 

Rabbi Timoner Quoted in Associated Press

Everyone in every neighborhood has a role. That’s the contest we’re in—every voice matters.

Once again, Rabbi Timoner was quoted in an article about Jewish Americans confronting antisemitism. Click here to read the article.

CBE Featured in NPR’s Weekend Edition

NPR’s Weekend Edition featured our recent Havdalah service, where we gathered on the steps of CBE in the wake of the Roe decision. Rabbi Timoner and Rabbi Kolin were both quoted in the piece. To paraphrase Rabbi Kolin, we will continue to demand sweetness from this world even when it feels the most bitter.

 

Rabbi Timoner Published in The NY Daily News

“The current campaign that advocates for the teaching of the rudiments of secular education in ultra-Orthodox schools in New York State […] arose in response to the alarming numbers — in the tens of thousands, according to Yaffed — of Jewish children in New York State being denied the building blocks of secular knowledge. Without this education, there is a high likelihood of poverty.”

Read Rabbi Rachel Timoner’s powerful op-ed about why all N.Y. children deserve a basic secular education in The NY Daily News.

 

 

Rabbi Timoner Organizes Group of Women Rabbis and Cantors to Speak with Mayor Adams

On Thursday, May 24th, Rabbi Rachel Timoner organized a group of 55 women and women-identifying rabbis and cantors to speak to Mayor Eric Adams. Representing all denominations, the group marks the largest and first ever group of women rabbis and cantors to speak to a NYC mayor.

Watch Rabbi Timoner address the press here:

 

Read coverage of this event in The Forward, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, The Jerusalem Post, and The Times of Israel.

Rabbi Timoner and Rabbi Kolin arrested demanding climate action by Wall Street giant’s Jewish CEO

“NEW YORK (JTA) — Three rabbis and six Jewish teenagers were among those arrested Monday at a climate protest at the Manhattan headquarters of BlackRock, the largest investment management company in New York.

The demonstration, organized by the Jewish Youth Climate Movement with support from the interfaith organization GreenFaith, demanded the firm stop its investments in and cut ties with companies that fund the fossil fuel industry, which include Enbridge, Inc., Formosa Plastics and Shell.

Rabbis Rachel Timoner and Stephanie Kolin of Congregation Beth Elohim in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and Rabbi Rachel Kahn-Troster, vice president of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, were among those arrested.

“Judaism’s highest priority is saving lives,” said Timoner in a statement. “The Jewish youth who are leading us today understand that we are in a life or death moment, that we must divest from fossil fuels now in order to save lives.”

Read the full article from JTA here. 

Rabbi Timoner Published in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency

“My dad taught me that businesses thrive when the dignity of every human being is honored — workers, customers and shareholders alike. He taught me that there is no contradiction between being pro-business and pro-union. He taught me that our economy and society can be both prosperous and caring. He taught me that standing for the rights of workers is what it means to be a proud Jew.”

Please read this meaningful op-ed by our very own Rabbi Rachel Timoner for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Rabbi Rachel Timoner Interviewed by NY1

“Most of what we’ll be doing is out and around the Sukkah. Families can bring a blanket, have a picnic, but stay separated from other families, but [they] still have the feeling of community, the opportunity to be outdoors and the opportunity to celebrate the holiday.”

Rabbi Timoner was recently interviewed by NY1 outside the CBE sukkah. Read the full article here.

Rabbi Timoner Interviewed in The Forward

“The main thing that Judaism tells us God believes about us is that no matter what we do and what we’ve done, no matter how we’ve fallen short of that ideal of justice, peace, love and compassion, no matter in what ways we’ve closed our hearts and failed to see how we’re harming others, how we’ve erred, there is endless opportunity for us to turn. God absolutely believes that human beings can endlessly improve ourselves, that there is no end to the learning curve, no limits on our capacity to become righteous.”

Read this powerful interview with Rabbi Timoner by journalist Abigail Pogrebin, originally published in The Forward, as part of her series Still Small Voice.

New York Jewish Agenda Presents: Allies Debate the Two-State Solution

At a time when progressive Zionists have united in opposition to annexation, Peter Beinart’s provocative essay in Jewish Currents, and his New York Times op-ed, divides allies. Beinart’s contention that a two-state solution is unattainable, and that a binational state provides the only path to achieving a just resolution to the conflict, has challenged the conventional wisdom and ignited a vigorous debate.

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Message from Rabbi Timoner to the CBE Community – My Thoughts On This Moment

Dear CBE Friends,

These are harrowing times. A pandemic, a nationwide cry for justice, fires and destruction, and police and now military deployed by the president to “dominate” our streets.

If you are feeling afraid, despairing, overwhelmed, or uncertain, you are not alone. Your CBE community and clergy are here for you, I am here for you, and our tradition is here for you.

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Rabbi Timoner and New York Jewish Agenda Featured in the Times of Israel

“We felt it was important to create a new voice in New York that focuses on state and local issues, that serves as a central address for liberal Jews whose Jewish values shape their priorities, both with respect to domestic issues and with respect to their support for Israel and their commitment to combating anti-Semitism.”

Rabbi Rachel Timoner shares the mission of the New York Jewish Agenda, which she recently co-founded with several other progressive NYC rabbis, activists, and politicians, in this new article by the Times of Israel.

Hashkiveinu – Friday Nights at CBE: Sounds of Shabbat

With each passing year, as with each passing day, we pray for peaceful transitions from work, to rest, to renewed wakefulness. This brooding, poignant melody, originally set to the text of Psalm 121 (“I lift my eyes to the mountains…”), brings out our essential human vulnerabilities but also calls us to reaffirm our faith in God’s essential grace and compassion. And it reminds us that no matter how scary the night may seem, we find courage by traveling through it together, as one community.

Adonai Malach/Mizmor Shiru l’Adonai – Friday Nights at CBE: Sounds of Shabbat

The month of Kislev heralds shorter days and colder weather, and the Jewish people respond by gathering in the warmth of community and kindling lights. In the midst of Kabbalat Shabbat, Psalm 97 draws an explicit comparison between increasing light and increasing happiness, and Psalm 98 exhorts the entire world to shout and sing with abandon at the wonders in our midst. Our medley of these two psalms incorporates melodies which match the unbridled joy of these ancient words of praise.

Tom Pnini

Tom Pnini is our Early Childhood Center’s Admissions Coordinator and Art Studio Teacher. Tom runs our “Cardboard Studio,” a classroom that has been completely transformed into an interactive art studio for kids to explore their creative side without limits. Our preschool students work with Tom in the Cardboard Studio as part of their curriculum.

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Me and the Jews

Check out this beautiful article written by our friend Rev. Dr. Daniel Meeter of Old First Reformed Church about his meaningful relationship to Judaism and CBE.

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Rebecca Kleinhandler-Dahan

Rebecca Kleinhandler-Dahan is a longtime CBE member and our wonderful lay leader for Shir L’Shabbat, a weekly Shabbat service geared towards young families with infants and young children up to age 4. Shir L’Shabbat is a special way for families and their little ones to welcome Shabbat together, filled with singing and dancing with our extraordinary songleader Debbie Brukman. Be sure to stop by and say hi!

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Y’did Nefesh – Friday Nights at CBE: Sounds of Shabbat

For the past several years, CBE has been experimenting with how Friday nights feel, look, taste, and sound. We have assembled a core community of dedicated regulars, a world-class jazz quartet in partnership with the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, and a unique collection of melodies that together transport us out of the workweek and into Shabbat: a sacred time of rest, refreshment, reflection, and utter joy.

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Julie Markes

Julie Markes has been a member of CBE for over 20 years. A professional photographer, Julie has also graciously photographed many CBE happenings, including B’nei Mitzvahs, Rabbi Green and Rabbi Epstein’s Installations, camp, and Chazakah.

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Rob Raich

Rob Raich has been a Trustee at CBE since 2010 and currently serves as our President, beginning his term in 2018. Rob works closely with our Board of Trustees, clergy team, and staff to ensure that CBE continues to be a welcoming and vibrant hub for Jewish life.

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Alan Herman

Alan Herman recently joined CBE as our Executive Director & Chief Operating Officer. Alan previously served as the Executive Director of Sutton Place Synagogue, and was an active lay leader at Central Synagogue and member of their Board of Trustees.

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Never Forget

By Betty Leigh Hutcheson

Aliza, Our Holocaust Survivor, Addressing the Mission. Photograph by (ret.) Lt. Col. Peter Lerner in April 2011.

Aliza Goldman-Landau buried her cousin’s son the same day she served Shabbat dinner to six members of our tour. She had agreed to be a host for the evening meal after services at Kehillat Mevasseret, a reform synagogue in a Jerusalem suburb. That Aliza continued with her commitment was incredible to us, but was a minor feat for this quiet, tiny woman—small in stature but large in spirit. Even more astonishing that evening was hearing her life story.

Aliza emigrated to the British Mandate of Palestine from Poland, arriving in 1947 by way of Cyprus when she was 9, an age when our children are considering treats, swimming pools, soccer in the park, and the secret comfort of a parent’s lap. Aliza’s life was much different. By the age when she was old enough to enjoy outdoor sports, her family had left Lodz to hide in the woods during the Nazi occupation. They hid in the forest for months and ate what they could find around them while the Nazis destroyed Jewish culture and lives throughout Europe.

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Creating Sanctuaries through Crises

By Rabbi Rachel Timoner

When innocent children are separated from their parents and held in camps, we are in a crisis.

When two synagogues experience Antisemitic murders within six months, we are in a crisis.

When hate and scapegoating are whipped up by the leader of the country, we are in a crisis.

When the president vilifies the press and threatens the freedom of the press, we are in a crisis.

When the president defies and delegitimizes Constitutionally-mandated oversight by Congress, we are in a crisis.

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Israel and Language

By Ed Bleiberg

One aspect of my relationship with Israel has always included my interest in languages. My year-long stay in Jerusalem in 1974-75 was primarily to learn Hebrew. On the recent CBE congregational trip to Israel, language took many forms.

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Israel’s Light

By Bonnie Bader

The light in Israel is brilliant. It floated over the Mediterranean, the Sea of Galilee, the Jordan River (which is neither deep nor wide). It reflected off the Dome of the Rock, emanated from the candles held in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and reflected off the Kotel; men and women praying in their separate sections. The light danced off faces: white, beige, brown, black, sparkling in the blue and brown eyes.

The light in Israel is mystical. Wandering through the cobbled streets of Tzfat, one of the four Holy Cities, I took in the blue doors, gobbled down a delicious Yemenite sandwich, and visited art galleries with work inspired by the messages of Kabbalah, and old synagogues each with its own story.

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Fellow Dykes: We Must Be Both Pro-Israel And Pro-Palestine

By Rabbi Rachel Timoner

I remember the first Dyke March, organized by the Lesbian Avengers in 1993 during the LGBT March on Washington. I was there, and I remember feeling that I was finally free — that we dykes could claim all of who we were — our full and complex identities, our bodies, our love, our commitments to equality and justice for all — and be utterly unashamed. It, and the subsequent marches since all over the country, have been profoundly liberating for so many people.

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Who Counts In Israel?

By Emily Sachs

Parshah B’midbar begins with an accounting/a census of military age Israelite men.

“So Moses and Aaron took those men, who were designated by name, and on the first day of the second month they convened the whole community, who were registered by the clans of their ancestral houses—the names of those aged twenty years and over being listed head by head.” Numbers 1:17

As the mother of a twenty-year old, whom we named for Jonah, the reluctant but effective prophet to the people of Ninevah, I think a lot about who counts, who serves, and what courage, service and peace-making look like.

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Our New Director of Yachad and Family Engagement

After a comprehensive and thoughtful process led by a committee chaired by Danielle Mindlin with members Leslie Lewin, Marc Sternberg, Mara Getz Shaftel, and Jonathan Spear, and in close consultation with our clergy team and Yachad staff, we are thrilled to welcome Tehilah Eisenstadt to CBE as our new Director of Yachad and Family Engagement, effective July 15.

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From the Valley to the Slope, and Back Again

Rabbi Leora Ezrachi-Vered recently joined us as part of her Golden Fellowship through HUC-JIR, which brings Israeli rabbinical students and recently ordained Israeli Reform Rabbis to intern in North American Reform congregations. Read Rabbi Ezrachi-Vered’s heartfelt reflection to CBE.
 
In the past week you may have noticed me around. I’ve had the good fortune to be able to visit CBE as a “Golden Fellow” (thanks to the generosity of the Hebrew Union College- Jewish Institute of Religion), getting to know your wonderful community, learning from your spiritual leadership and joining activities.

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Carol Shuchman

A CBE member for 30 years, Carol Shuchman organizes our annual Respite Bed Shelter, which she helped to launch eight years ago. The five-week shelter – operated in conjunction with CAMBA – is hosted in the Rotunda; it provides 12 homeless men with a warm, safe place to sleep, and a hot, protein-based meal prepared and served by CBE families and volunteers.

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Reclining as a Measure of Freedom

One of my favorite aspects of the seder is that we eat reclining. In this one move, the seder invites us to act out the release of stress from the body. The four questions tell us that on other nights we might eat sitting upright — tense — our minds on the work or hardships of the day, full of worry about what tomorrow will hold. But tonight, the freed slave experiences the psychic safety to recline, and we re-enact that sense of emotional and physical release. When my kids were little, they’d decorate their own special pillows for this purpose, which led them to nestle in to the shoulders or onto the laps of their neighbors. We’d make sure that everyone around the table had a pillow in order to fully lean on one another. This leaning on others reminds us that we’re connected, and the people around us can help hold us up.

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Rabbi Timoner’s Op-Ed in the Forward

Rabbi Timoner recently wrote an op-ed for the Forward on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s upcoming appearance at the AIPAC Policy conference, expressing major concern for Netanyahu’s recent embrace of the controversial, extremist Jewish Power Party.

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Heartbreak into Shabbat: Rabbi Timoner’s Message to the Community after the Christchurch Shooting

Dear CBE Community,

As we prepare for Shabbat, our hearts are broken from the murderous hate that killed 49 Muslims during prayer at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. Before killing and wounding innocent worshippers, the murderer released a manifesto citing American white nationalism as his inspiration. With Pittsburgh still so clear in our memories, we know how threatened and vulnerable all Jews felt after our own people were targeted in one of our holy places. We also know what it felt like when the larger community stood with us to make clear that we were not, and would not be, alone. We remember in particular how the Muslim community encircled us with their love and support.

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Rabbi Timoner on Religion News Service Podcast

Rabbi Rachel Timoner recently appeared on an episode of the Beliefs Podcast, a weekly news podcast covering religion, faith, and ethics. Rabbi Timoner and Dr. William Baker had a meaningful conversation about progressive activism, Zionism, the great potential of the progressive Jewish movement in America, and the crosswinds and squalls for American Jews during the Trump Administration.

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Unleavened Plays Festival

CBE is excited to announce its first annual Unleavened Plays Festival.

The Festival is seeking six 10-minute plays, each reflecting the underlying theme of “PLAGUE(S).” The plays will be performed as an evening of staged readings at CBE on Sunday, April 14, 2019 — the weekend before Passover begins, as people around the world begin to think about the Jewish people’s efforts to escape Egypt and head out into the desert toward freedom.

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