Archive 2012

NEW YORK – In response to a letter released Friday by a group of representatives of mainline Protestant groups, calling for Congressional investigations into all foreign aid to Israel on the basis that Israel has allegedly used it in violation of...

NEW YORK – The leader of France’s Front National political party, Marine Le Pen, who ran for president earlier this year, this weekend said the government should ban religious head coverings in public. She attempted to cover up her gaffe by...

NEW YORK – In response to violence in Cairo and Libya earlier this week, leaving three dead including American Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, Julie Schonfeld issued the following statement today on behalf of the board, staff and members of...

NEW YORK – The New York City Board of Health is scheduled to vote this week on requiring parental consent for mohalim to engage in the controversial practice of m'tzitzah b’peh, or direct oral suction, during a b'rit milah. The Rabbinical Assembly...

RA Expresses Concern for Anti-Semitic ViolenceNEW YORK – Earlier this week, Daniel Alter, one of the first liberal rabbis to be ordained in Germany since the Holocaust, and the former rabbi of the Masorti congregation in Oldenburg, Germany, was...

We are aware of a New York Times column by Sam Freedman regarding the Conservative Movement's Joint Placement commission comprising the Rabbinical Assembly, United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, The Jewish Theological Seminary and the Ziegler...

RA Concerned by Charges Against German Mohel, Efforts Throughout Europe to Ban CircumcisionNEW YORK – Efforts by groups opposed to circumcision, at both the local and national level in Germany, as well as in several other European countries,...

NEW YORK – Recent weeks have seen a multiplicity of shootings in the United States. Dozens have been killed or injured. The Rabbinical Assembly, the international umbrella organization for Conservative rabbis, reiterates its opposition to gun...

NEW YORK – In response to Sunday’s tragic shooting at the Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, Wisc., near Milwaukee, Julie Schonfeld released the following statement: A week ago on Tishah B’av, the Jewish people commemorated the destruction of our holy...