In the News

Jewish Telegraphic Agency By Gil Shefler NEW YORK (JTA) — An interfaith group distributed a specially composed memorial prayer for the Rev. Martin Luther King to U.S. synagogues. The prayer sent out by the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding honoring King is to be recited on Jan. 19, the Sabbath before the federal holiday two days later honoring the slain civil rights activist. “Grant us the wisdom to truly understand that all of humanity is created equally in Your image so that ‘an injustice...

Huffington Post By Rabbi Marc Schneier and Russell Simmons On Jan. 7, exactly two weeks before we are to simultaneously celebrate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and inaugurate Barack Obama to his second term as President of the United States, sinister advertisements went up in dozens of subway stations around New York City, making evident that despite the undoubted strides our nation has made toward achieving justice and equality, bigotry and fear-mongering remain alive and well in America. The...

By Rabbi Marc Schneier The end of year 2012 coincides with the end of days for our Patriarch Jacob, which was the focus of the biblical reading last Shabbat. Jacob, lying on his deathbed, looks over to his children. Will he remember the internecine conflict among his sons, the hatred among the brothers, the attempt at fracticide, and the disappearance of Joseph that caused Jacob so much distress and anguish or will he remember how he, Jacob, provoked his children, favoring one son over the other...

Huffington Post By Rabbi Marc Schneier Hanukkah, the eight day holiday which the Jewish people just observed, is first and foremost, about miracles. Hanukkah commemorates both the miracle of the victory of the Jewish people led by Judah Maccabee in their uprising against their Greek oppressors in 165 B.C.E. and the miracle that the menorah in the reconsecrated Temple in Jerusalem burned for eight days, even though there was only enough oil to light it for one day. To be sure, miracles have always...

The Times of Israel By Rabbi Marc Schneier Miracles have always played a major role in Jewish history; indeed, the very survival of the Jews as a people, despite nearly 2000 years of exile and persecution, is the greatest miracle of all. Yet in the Talmud, our sages remind us that one must not rely on miracles. Yes, miracles can happen, but one has to work terribly hard to make them possible. Over the past six years, I have been privileged to take part in a modern-day miracle; the establishment of...

Huffington Post By Rabbi Marc Schneier The juxtaposition of events was at once startling and profoundly reassuring. Last week in Vienna, only a few days after a cease-fire put an end to the recent exchange of missile fire between Israel and Gaza, I had the privilege of attending the opening of the King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz International Centre for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue in Vienna. The often inspirational event held at the ornate Hofburg Palace was attended by U.N. Secretary General...

Huffington Post By Rabbi Marc Schneier and Imam Shamsi Ali In the run up to Thanksgiving, hundreds of Muslims and Jews have joined together in cities across North America to serve nourishing meals to hungry and homeless people. In the process, they are also manifesting that even on occasions like the present moment, when violence erupts in the Middle East, Muslims and Jews living side by side in North America, Europe and around the world are determined to connect with each other to build grass roots...

The Times of Israel By Rabbi Marc Schneier Next week, on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish community will gather together to read the Torah portion detailing one of the earliest and most troubling family rivalries in human history – but one whose resolution can provide us all with a measure of hope for a better tomorrow. The Torah reading tells the story of the forced exodus of Hagar and her son Ishmael from the home of Abraham due to a bitter feud with Sarah. Sent into the wilderness, the resentment and...

FFEU's Weekend of Twinning set to take place at 250 Jewish and Muslim institutions in 26 countries at some 125 meetings.