Nov 23: “‘All God’s Children’ Review: A Brooklyn Synagogue and a Church Seeking Unity Offer an Edifying Parable for Our Time…”
A thoughtful review of All God’s Children in Variety.
Nov 20: “Two religious leaders in Brooklyn became concerned about rising tensions between Black and Jewish residents…”
A wonderful interview about All God’s Children with Rabbi Timoner, Reverend Waterman, and director Ondi Timoner.
Cantor Breitzer spoke to the welcoming, inclusive spirit of our annual Simchat Torah Across Brooklyn celebration in this feature story on the challenges and opportunities in coming together across the Jewish religious and political spectrum.
Oct 16: “In an Oprah-like moment…”
Rabbi Timoner’s surprise Rosh Hashanah gift of star-of-David necklaces inspired a feature story in NY Jewish Week. For those who still would like a necklace, we are ordering 2,000 more and will update everyone when they’re available to pick up.
Oct 16: “The Urban Sukkah”
See CBE’s 8th Avenue Sukkah along with many other examples In NYC in this celebratory Sukkot round-up that quotes Rabbi Timoner: “People get a big smile on their face and they’re totally delighted to experience this aspect of Judaism that’s not necessarily something everyone is familiar with.”
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.
A New York Times article profiling Senate Majority Leader and CBE member Chuck Schumer following his controversial speech on the Senate floor last week highlights the role Rabbi Timoner played as his rabbi.
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.”
Rabbi Timoner was interviewed in Politico about Senator Schumer’s speech.
A group of community volunteers that prepares Jewish bodies for burial is featured in this JTA article, and includes testimony from Rabbi Timoner, one of the group’s founding members. You can hear Rabbi Timoner and learn more about the movement to elevate, normalize, and demystify Jewish end-of-life rituals by listening to this Exit Strategy podcast episode.
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.”
“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.
Rabbi Timoner adapted her sermon from Shabbat B’reishit into an op-ed for The New York Times. Read it here.
Over the past few days, Rabbi Timoner was quoted in a number of news stories about the atrocity in Israel. Find them below:
- The New Yorker
- The New York Times
- The New York Times
- The Washington Post
- NY Daily News
- Jewish Insider
Last updated: 10/19/23.
Yasher koach to Rabbi Kolin and the CBE Climate Team for representing us at the March to End Fossil Fuels. Watch an excerpt of Rabbi Kolin’s speech from Guardian News (2:32) or read her complete speech on Facebook.
Rabbi Rachel Timoner was one of six progressive New York rabbis profiled about her plans to incorporate the threats to Israeli democracy in her High Holy Days sermons. Read Haaretz‘s coverage .
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz have featured our free Israeli services with Rabbi Josh Weinberg. Find these services and others open to the community here.
“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.
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.
Hanukkah is about our resilience and showing the world that we’re here.
Rabbi Green was interviewed today on WNYC’s All of it With Alison Stewart. Listen to the interview here.
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.
A rabbi, a minister, and an imam walked into Lincoln Center—and the rabbi was our very own Matt Green! Rabbi Green was the rabbi for Lincoln Center’s Celebrate Love: A (Re)Wedding, a symbolic marriage ceremony for couples whose weddings had been postponed due to the pandemic.
“As Jews, we ought to be contributing our voices to the reduction of gun violence.”
—Rabbi Timoner
This year, Rabbi Timoner was featured in The New York Jewish Week‘s 36 to Watch 2022! KM “DiCo” DiColandrea, former assistant director at CBE’s Yachad, was also recognized. We’re excited to see their work honored.
To read more about them and other Jewish New Yorkers making a difference in our community, click here.
“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.”
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:
Rabbi @rtimoner said that this is the largest and first ever meeting of women rabbis and cantors with a mayor of NYC.
“This is the face of Jewish leadership in New York City,” Timoner said. pic.twitter.com/dgD7Ot8aIV
— Jacob Henry (@jhenrynews) May 19, 2022
Read coverage of this event in The Forward, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, The Jerusalem Post, and The Times of Israel.
Watch Rabbi Rachel Timoner’s invocation @NYCMayor Eric Adams’ speech marking his first 100 Days in office. Rachel, a NYJA Board Member and Co-Founder, did us proud today with her powerful and prayerful remarks! @rtimoner @CBEBK @bradlander pic.twitter.com/UJlbE8lETy
— New York Jewish Agenda (@NYJewishAgenda) April 26, 2022
“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.
“When I first realized we weren’t going to be able to fill the sanctuary completely, I was disappointed. But now, I’m just really excited to be back. It’s still going to be incredibly uplifting,” Read the full article from NY Daily News that Rabbi Timoner was interviewed for here.
“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.
“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.
There once was a man on a journey who came across a beautiful palace, but the palace was on fire. He looked around, trying to find help to put out the blaze. He wondered, surely there must someone who owns this palace, someone who cares for it. This, the rabbis teach in the midrash (Genesis Rabba 39:1), was our ancestor Abraham.
“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.
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.
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.
“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.
As part of a series of articles on Judaism and American democracy published by eJewish Philanthropy, Rabbi Timoner wrote the following article on the imperative of Jews and civic engagement especially during this particularly challenging time.
Rabbi Timoner recently signed on to a joint letter sent to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo with over 100 New York City and New York State faith leaders in support of bail reform. Read the full letter below.
Rabbi Timoner recently co-authored an op-ed in the Forward with Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum of Congregation Beit Simchat Torah in Manhattan and Matt Nosanchuk of the New York Jewish Agenda about what repealing New York cash bail reform could mean for Jews.
Senior Rabbi of CBE Rachel Timoner was recently invited to help deliver the unity prayer at the African-American Clergy & Elected Officials breakfast with Rev. Dr. Robert Waterman of Antioch Baptist Church, Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, New York State Attorney General Letitia James, NYC Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams, and many more.
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.
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 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.
As the Jewish community emerges from weeks of holidays and enters the month of Marcheshvan, we take comfort in the simple weekly rhythm of Shabbat.
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.
Ki HaMalchut Shel’cha – Friday Nights at CBE: Sounds of Shabbat
At the heart of Rosh Hashanah morning liturgy lies “Aleinu l’shabeiach,” an affirmation of God’s ultimate, singular sovereignty over everything that is.
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!
Read Rabbi Timoner’s review of Rabbi Mike Moskowitz’s recent book, Textual Activism, a collection of essays, articles, and teachings offering a new perspective on Torah, with an emphasis on contemporary issues of justice and inclusion, especially around gender identity.
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.
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.
We are thrilled to welcome Paul Taylor to CBE as our new Aquatics Director.
Forty-four protesters were arrested while demonstrating against Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) cloud contracts with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at a New York Amazon Bookstore Sunday evening.
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.
Rabbi Timoner’s article, “Hope for Independence and Peace for All”, is featured on the Union for Reform Judaism’s Ten Minutes of Torah series. In it, she reflects on visiting the village of Sanoor, where every Shabbat a delegation from Physicians for Human Rights Israel comes to the West Bank to offer a mobile medical clinic.
By Larry Rothbart
There were several large takeaways for me from our group trip to Israel. One, which several people have noted in their essays and became the group’s running theme, was that Israel is a complex and complicated puzzle.
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.
Bobbie Finkelstein is our Director of Youth Services. Bobbie oversees our five-day-a-week after school program during the school year, as well as all of our summer camp programs!
Jonathan Fried has been an active member of the CBE community in many different capacities since his childhood. Notably, Jonathan served as CBE president from 2014 to 2017.
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.
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.
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.
Proposal due date extended through August 11, 2019
Congregation Beth Elohim is seeking sealed bids for sales and installation of security related enhancements.
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.
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.
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.
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.
CBE members had an idea: what if kids around the country wrote personal letters to the kids who’ve been separated from their parents and are being held in detention in Homestead?
We are thrilled to welcome Alan Herman as our Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer, effective July 15.
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.
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.
Brian Shuman has been a member of CBE since 2010 and has been an invaluable volunteer leader for our previous and upcoming CBE Fun(d) Run on May 19.
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.
Meet Stephen McBurnie! Stephen is one of our security guards who is often the first person to greet you when you visit CBE.
First reported on by The Brooklyn Paper, “students at [St. Saviour Catholic Academy] trekked to a local synagogue to gift their Jewish neighbors an orange tree, in memory of a massacre that claimed 11 lives at a Pittsburgh temple last year.
The Jewish coming-of-age ceremony stretches to accommodate the new gender fluidity…
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.
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.
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.
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.
Rabbi Matthew L. Green identified as “an exceptionally innovative leader” in an article written by Rabbi Rick Jacobs, President of Union for Reform Judaism. Article originally published on urj.org.