Highlights from our “Conversation with…” column over the past year

Professor Hindy Najman

Professor of religious studies at Yale University.

(Jan. 4, 2013)

I am engaged in figuring out how to be a Jew in and of this world – how to give back to the world as a Jew, and how to be influenced and transformed by the world around us. This involves a kind of optimism: the belief that there is improvement as we move forward, that we don’t have to go back to get insight.

Rabbi Yaakov Komisar

Educator and rabbi at Ezra Academy in Woodbridge and a teacher at The Conservative Synagogue in Westport; and a gun owner. (Jan. 18, 2013)

At the end of the day, what we’re talking about is balancing really weighty and competing moral values – the good of the individual vs. the good of society. Jewish texts indicate that society might be better off without weapons available at all, lest they fall into the wrong hands. At the same time, these texts mandate the right to hold a weapon for self-defense. The inherited wisdom of the rabbinic tradition can help us understand how to balance these competing moral imperatives.

Dr. Steven M. Cohen

Research professor of Jewish social policy at Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion, and director of the Berman Jewish Policy Archive at NYU’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.

(March 1, 2013)

At every moment, everyone thinks that the current changes are unprecedented, but it’s not true. The 19th century saw the creation of Reform, Orthodox, and Conservative movements, as well as Zionism and Bundism. All those ideologies were newly created within one century, in addition to mass migration. In the 20th century there was huge poverty and class conflict, then the Shoah, and then the founding of the state of Israel. That’s pretty momentous; that’s a lot of change; arguably, more than what we’re going through now. But the history of people in general and of Jews in particular is a history of change. I see it as both dangerous and hopeful in different ways.

Rabbi Avi Weiss

Spiritual leader of New York’s Modern Orthodox Hebrew Institute of Riverdale. Founder and dean of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School and Yeshivat Maharat for Orthodox women. Named by Newsweek as one of America’s most influential rabbis. (March 8, 2013)

I believe very strongly, and am unapologetic when it comes to the key challenge facing Am Yisrael, in bringing together lay and spiritual leaders of all Jewish denominations. While we don’t agree on everything and while I may disagree with my colleagues from other denominations; we can and do learn from each other. For me the most critical value across the board is that, as an Orthodox rabbi, I have no monopoly on a love of Torah, a love of the people of Israel, a love of the land of Israel, and I have much to learn from my Conservative and Reform colleagues, and the reverse is true as well.

Delia Ephron

Bestselling author, screenwriter, and playwright, whose movies include “You’ve Got Mail” and “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.”

My mother raised me with a feeling that organized religion was a divisive thing. So she sort of raised me in a very secular way. But there was an obsession with books, and culture and theater – culturally we were Jewish. So it was always felt that we were Jewish – it was never an issue. My mother just didn’t believe in any of the rituals, etc.

Rabbi Mark Golub

President/executive producer of Shalom TV, and spiritual leader of Chavurat Deevray Torah of Greenwich and Chavurat Aytz Chayim of Stamford. Named by Newsweek as one of America’s most influential rabbis. (May 24, 2013)

Everyone experiences the divine in some way and each people has its own way of expressing that, and I am in love with the Jewish people’s way, with its emphasis on the importance of menschlichkeit. Over time, I have become ohev Yisrael (a lover of Israel) regarding the state and people of Israel; the miraculous reality of the Jewish people living a Jewish life and having a presence and sovereignty in its own homeland. I wanted to excite people about being Jewish and living in the Jewish tradition and let them know why they should be so proud if they are Jewish – and respectful if they’re not – about Judaism’s incredible accomplishments.

David Krakauer

An American clarinetist known worldwide for his work in klezmer music, as well as classical music, jazz performance and avant-garde improvisation.

(May 31, 2013)

Klezmer gave me this thing to hold onto, something strong about my Jewish identity. I started having Jewish content in my life. Since then, I’ve been on a Jewish journey. I went to the town where my great-grandfather was from, played at the Krakow Jewish Music Festival, met Jews from all over the world who sense that by playing klezmer music, it’s almost a political stand without waving any flags or getting up on soapboxes.

Rabbi Debra Cantor

Spiritual leader of B’nai Tikvoh-Sholom in Bloomfield. She was among the first group of women ordained by Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS). This year, she was detained for reading Torah aloud and wearing tallitot at the Western Wall as part of Women of the Wall. (June 14, 2013)

I’m part of the organized Jewish community and I have a huge stake in seeing that community strong and growing it in creative ways. We have to remind ourselves that we can’t be invested in one specific institutional approach; we have to be open, and that’s both scary and exciting. What grounds me, because I am a creative person and feel that I’m more excited than fearful, is reminding myself what still works, what is still at the heart of the enterprise of the Jewish people, and that is Torah, God, and community.

Rabbi Daniel Cohen

Spiritual leader of Stamford’s Congregation Agudath Shalom and a past chairman of the Vaad of Fairfield County and the Stamford Rabbinical Council. He is preparing to publish his first book, What Will They Say About You When You Are Gone? Seven Principles for Reverse Engineering Your Life. (July 19, 2013)

Martin Buber says there can either be “I-it” relationships or “I-thou” relationships. If I treat people just like obstacles for me to get to where I want to go, or like objects, I’m going to have a very empty life. But if I develop a strategy to have “I-thou” relationships when I talk to people – for example, when I get an email, I don’t just let it go; I take the moment to say “You know, maybe there’s someone there that needs a little help, someone I can connect with on a deeper level ” – then life is going to be fantastic. You will live on such a higher plane. And the world would be a whole different place because we’re not just cruising, we’re living.

Prof. David Nirenberg

Professor of Medieval history and social thought at the University of Chicago and director of the Neubauer Family Collegium for Culture and Society. Author of Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition. (Aug. 30, 2013)

We’re not ancient Egypt, we’re not the early Christians, we’re not Medieval Europe, and yet, the Jew is still a key category for us in explaining our world. People talk about antisemitism as the “timeless hatred,” but I’m talking about anti-Judaism – how our basic tools of thought, the concepts with which we make basic sense of the world, are connected to Judaism and transform themselves as the world changes, why both Jewishness and Judaism are at the center of how people make sense of their world.


Rabbi Lawrence Kushner

A scholar-in-residence at Congregation Emanu-el in San Francisco and an adjunct member of the faculty of the Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles.  (Sept. 20, 2013)

Show me a kid who prays regularly, I’ll show you a screwed-up kid. Adults should be watching kids, who are more spiritual beings, until we drum it out of them. The most important challenge adults face is trying to demonstrate, not tell; to show by living action how universal the urge is to access the transcendent or re-experience the primal unity of all things. This can be done beautifully and gracefully and effectively through all the Jewish religious “junk.” I would want my kids to see me cry and hug someone in the temple courtyard and explain why, or to see me with a tear running down my face during services and ask why.

Ron Leshem

Award-winning Israeli writer and novelist. Former head of programming for Keshet Broadcasting, Israel’s leading TV network. He co-wrote the screenplay for his bestselling novel, Beaufort, which was nominated for an Academy Award. (Nov. 1, 2013)

The geopolitical environment that surrounds us turns us into neurotics and paranoids. We are a society steeped in trauma because each one of us comes from a different disaster, and that leads to highly charged personal stories. Thirty-eight percent of Israelis were born overseas and migrated to the country, which creates very diverse and emotionally vulnerable voices. Also, something in our national character is less fearful of failure. Add to that the fact that culturally, we are very close to the American sensibility, and mostly watch American TV and cinema, so that the exchange also works in the opposite direction: it’s easier to promote our products in the U.S. market.

Deborah Lipstadt

Professor of modern Jewish Holocaust studies at Emory University. In a celebrated case, she was sued for libel by British historian David Irving, after she depicted him as a Holocaust denier in one of her books. She won.

(Nov. 8, 2013)

What isn’t diminished is this “soft-core” kind of [Holocaust] denial – the false comparisons, like comparing communism and Nazism, referring to Israel as a “Nazi state” and comparing the tactics and behavior of the Israeli Defense Forces to the Gestapo. In those cases, criticism of Israel morphs into a kind of antisemitism. … Soft-core denial is harder to pin down … Soft-core denial is more slippery. Someone might say, “Why do we have to hear so much about the Holocaust?” or talk about the “genocide of Palestinians.” Soft-core denial is not denying the facts; it’s inverting them in a way that the victims become the perpetrators: “Why did the Germans hate the Jews? Because the Jews were rich and conniving;” as if to say that Jews deserved what the Nazis did to them.