At this moment of extreme racial tension in the United States, it is important to reopen the books and recall an almost entirely unknown story involving the emergence of the Ku Klux Klan in 1868 in Tennessee. The Civil War had ended just three years earlier but smoldering racial resentments...
This year a focus of KI is on Social Justice. At Rosh Hashanah Rabbi Rigler delivered an impassioned speech on Social Justice. She mentioned many suggested books to read. As she spoke, I thought to myself that these titles are in our collection. It is interesting to note that while...
The ways we communicate have completely changed since the pandemic. We are holding hands over zoom, we are putting hopeful messages on our sidewalk with chalk, we are honking and yelling out of our cars for celebrations, and we are meeting each other outside, from a distance. In an “unmute...
Dear KI Congregants, There is a lot of excitement building around our 173rd Annual KI Congregational Membership Meeting scheduled for this evening, June 11, 2020 at 7:00 p.m. As you know by now all our KI business meetings have transitioned to Zoom and procedures that we would normally follow at...
A Statement From the Social Justice Committee June 1, 2020 To Our Beloved KI Community: We, the members of the Social Justice Committee, have focused our efforts on education and advocacy: Education designed to forge bonds of understanding across difference, and advocacy related to voting. In January of this year,...
God Bless America. 2 God bless America Ideals that I love Through the gas and the glass In the night of our broken laws From our cities to the White House To the police stations Burned and charred God bless America Land filled with scars God bless America Its streets...
I Can’t Breathe I can’t breathe, The knee of oppression Is on my neck. I can’t breathe, The air of my city Is filled with tear gas. I can’t breathe, I am filled with rage And the smoke of burning buildings. I can’t breathe Because the air is filled with...
Dear KI Congregants, Rabbi Sussman recently shared, on his Facebook page, the message from Rabbi Rick Jacobs, President of the Union for Reform Judaism, regarding the Reform Movement’s feelings about reopening our houses of worship during this pandemic. I hope you have had time to read his words and I...
I was amazed to learn earlier this week that over 600 people had viewed and liked my posting on Facebook of Rabbi Rick Jacobs’, President of the Union of Reform Judaism (URJ), message that Reform synagogues will stay closed for the foreseeable future in response to COVID-19. “The saving of...
