Rabbi Sid Schwarz is a senior fellow at Clal: The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership where he directs the New Paradigm Spiritual Communities Initiative and the Clergy Leadership Incubator (CLI), a program that trains rabbis to be visionary spiritual leaders. Sid founded and led PANIM: The Institute for Jewish Leadership and Values for 21 years and is also the founding rabbi of Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation in Bethesda, MD where he continues to teach and lead services. He is the author of “Jewish Megatrends: Charting the Course of the American Jewish Community.”
Sid Schwarz
By Sid Schwarz
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Community Making a Spiritual Future for America’s Jewish Community
The Jewish community is in a time of transition. Those who are active in the community certainly know this. Many of the institutions that have been the backbone of the organized Jewish community—synagogues, JCCs, Federations, membership organizations—have been losing market share for more than two decades. This is a decline that cannot be attributed to…
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Opinion Abraham and Sons
It’s no secret that services on the first day of Rosh Hashanah are much better attended than those on its second day. But what the second day of the Jewish New Year lacks in attendance, it makes up for in narrative drama. In synagogue that day, we read Genesis 22, which recounts the binding of…
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Opinion Back to Shul: Innovate To Beat the Synagogue Slump
In the coming weeks, Jews will be frequenting places to which they rarely go — their synagogues. One rabbi I know did an anonymous survey of his congregation on the reason they came to synagogue on the High Holy Days. The most common response was: “to see my friends.” It is enough to get clergy…
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