5.29.11
This is an Archival Site
There is now a new Rogovoy Report home
5.18.11
Weekend Preview May 19-24
Bob Dylan tributes, Deborah Voigt, Tom Paxton, Bill Kirchen, John Kirk and Trish Miller
5.18.11
Celebrating Bob Dylan's 70th Birthday in Style
Paying tribute to the greatest rock songwriter ever
5.17.11
FILM REVIEW: In a Better World and Of Gods and Men
Review by Seth Rogovoy
5.17.11
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5.12.11
Deborah Voigt Headlines Mahaiwe Gala
Opera star to sing arias, show tunes on Saturday, May 21
5.15.11
Famed Spiritual Teacher to Speak on Nonviolence
Mother Maya in free talk at Sruti Yoga in Great Barrington, Mass., on Friday May 20 at 7pm
5.12.11
Special Effects Wizard to Be Honored by Film Festival
Doug Trumbull to be Feted by BIFF
5.11.11
Weekend Preview May 12-16
Cultural Highlights of the Berkshire Weekend
6.4.09
Talk about a small world
Elaine and I grew up together, but only just recently met....
5.8.11
Berkshire Living to Cease Publication
A Farewell from Publisher Michael Zivyak
5.8.11
twiGs Branches Out
Lenox boutique launches new e-tail site
5.8.11
[MUSIC REVIEW] Avalon Quartet in Close Encounters at Mahaiwe
Review by Seth Rogovoy
5.8.11
[MUSIC REVIEW] Avalon Quartet in Close Encounters at Mahaiwe
Review by Seth Rogovoy
5.7.11
[FILM REVIEW] Bill Cunningham New York
Review by Seth Rogovoy
5.7.11
[FILM REVIEW] Bill Cunningham New York
Review by Seth Rogovoy
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Reform Judaism admits historic mistake, adopts Orthodox practice
2.4.06
Well, not exactly, but the first inklings of such a move can be detected in an astonishing column in today's New York Times by Debra Nussbaum-Cohen about how the Reform Jewish movement is acknowledging that its "kumbaya"-style of worship, in which, according to one Reform "rabbi" quoted, "synagogues now have everybody sitting in a circle with someone playing a guitar sharing feelings," has been an utter turnoff for at least half the population of young Reform Jews, who are consequently abandoning the religion of their forebears in droves.
"The problem does not seem to exist in Orthodoxy," writes Nussbaum-Cohen in her column, "Reform Jews Examining Ways to Retain Their Young Men." Finally acknowledging the bankruptcy of their modern approach of throwing out the baby with the bathwater, resulting in an empty religious experience based more on 1960s-style leftist campfires than anything our grandparents ever experienced back in Eastern Europe or Northern Africa, Reform temples, she writes, "recently started its own study of boys' needs and may develop some regular activity with both social and religious components just for them."
It's hard to overstate how shocking is this acknowledgment of a difference between boys and girls -- and men and women -- since egalitarianism has been enshrined as an unassailable value, trumping most other more traditional Jewish values (honoring one's parents; daily prayer; belief in Moshiach; observance of Shabbat and festivals), in the Reform movement and even to a large extent in the Conservative movement.
In other words, Reform is finally acknowledging that there actually was some wisdom in the old ways -- so much so, that the movement "plans to help congregational educators learn how to distinguish between girls' learning needs and boys', and how to help the boys."
And in one development that is likely to have an entire century of deceased Reform leaders rolling over in their non-consecrated graves, "More male-only worship services may also be held in Reform settings."
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