Author Archives: joshuarabin

On July 1, 2021, membership in USY will be no more. After a long hiatus, here’s my article in eJewishPhilanthropy about why that’s awesome, and what it means to take a wrecking ball to an iconic practice.

A report from The Council on Foreign Relations states “rising numbers of sick people, growing unemployment, increased anxiety and financial stress, and a scarcity of community resources have set the stage for an exacerbated domestic violence crisis around the world.” … Continue reading →

I am a somewhat regular contributor to eJewishPhilanthropy, and wanted for some time to write a piece on racism and white privilege. And yet I struggled for months to write a piece I felt comfortable with because of one roadblock: my … Continue reading →

Tomorrow night, I will be a guest on Facebook Live sponsored by JewishLIVE with Rabbi Avi Finegold and Professor Roberta (Bobbi) Kwall, as we discuss Bobbi’s new book Remix Judaism.   You can RSVP for the event here; I hope that you … Continue reading →

A few weeks ago, USY cancelled our summer programs.  And yet one of the most important things people can do in times of acute stress is express hakarat ha-tov, gratitude, and these days I find myself with an abundance of gratitude. … Continue reading →

Breaking a teenager’s heart always breaks my heart.   And, in a time of COVID-19, it’s not going to get easier any time soon.   Today, eJewishPhilanthropy published a letter I wrote to USYers and all teenagers who no longer have … Continue reading →

Critiquing social media is chic, yet I believe that the conventional wisdom about social media lets us off the hook too easily and denies us agency.   This week, I wrote a guest Dvar Torah for the Jewish Theological Seminary … Continue reading →

Recently, I took my dream job as Senior Director of USY, the Jewish youth movement that changed my life forever.   Today, eJewishPhilanthropy published an article I wrote about my educational vision for USY.  You can read the article by clicking … Continue reading →

In my hardest moments as a Conservative rabbi, I remember that most of the people critiquing how we do what we do are not cynical commentators who chose to abandon that which they could transform, or who never chose this … Continue reading →

Generations upon generations have passed since the destruction of the Second Temple, and what drives our connection to this physical place is not that any of us can say that we saw it with our eyes, but that we heard … Continue reading →