Thursday, January 28, 2010 at 10:28AM With J Street Pittsburgh, the local chapter of the nation’s liberal Zionist organization, set to kick off its operations here next week with a celebration, now is a good time to talk about common ground in American Zionism.
J Street, Lee Chottiner Friday, December 4, 2009 at 2:02PM So I was sitting around the table with my New Jersey relations on Thanksgiving, doing the normal things — devouring turkey, scarfing down stuffing, choosing between candied yams and sweet potato pie (and selecting both) — when this topic came up:
One of my relatives is a board member at her temple (I won’t say where), where a controversy is brewing. One of its longtime members — a woman who is very active in congregation life — married out of the faith. Sadly, her husband just died, and the woman wanted the rabbi to perform some kind of service. But the rabbi, when informed of the death, said he didn’t do such services, and did not respond to the woman for nearly two weeks.
That was it. He never visited the widow and never expressed his condolences (until well after the issue blew up).
Lee Chottiner