Rabbi Richard Jacobs, President Designate of the Union for Reform Judaism, presented greetings at HUC-JIR's Jack H. Skirball Campus in Los Angeles Graduation Ceremonies on May 16, 2011. He said, "I feel honored to be here today on this campus that helped me begin to shape a vision for Jewish life. I want to offer my congratulations to you--my colleagues in Jewish communal leadership. More importantly, I want to enlist your help in reshaping our Jewish communal institutions so as to meet the challenges and opportunities of this moment. Everywhere we look, there are dramatic challenges facing our people, yet each is a phenomenal opportunity to revitalize Jewish life. Only very rarely has Jewish history known an era of so much creativity or innovation; no previous generation has possessed our resources and potential. For two centuries, Reform Judaism has pointed the way forward. For the past forty years, our religious ingenuity has made us the fastest growing theologically liberal denomination in America. And yet we've become bogged down. We're trapped in fear about the future. This moment in Jewish history demands bold thinking with big ideas; this is not a time for staying the course. It's time to reinvent the architecture of Jewish life. Colleagues past, present, and future, it is time to dive into those known and unknown waters of Jewish life. And remember unexpected things happen all of the time."

Dr. Sharon Koren, Assistant Professor of Medieval Jewish Culture at HUC-JIR/New York, recently published Forsaken: The Menstruant in Medieval Jewish Mysticism. This book addresses a central question in the study of Jewish mysticism in the medieval and early modern periods: why are there no known female mystics in medieval Judaism, unlike contemporaneous movements in Christianity and Islam? Koren demonstrates that the male rejection of female mystical aspirations is based in deeply rooted attitudes toward corporeality and ritual purity. In particular, medieval Jewish male mystics increasingly emphasized that the changing states of the female body between ritual purity and impurity disqualified women from the quest for mystical connection with God. Offering a provocative look at premodern rabbinical views of the female body and their ramifications for women's spiritual development, Koren compares Jewish views with medieval Christian and Muslim views of both female menstruation and the possibility of female mystical experience. Click here to read more about the book in Tablet Magazine's recent article, On the Bookshelf. Click here to purchase the book from Brandeis University Press.

Rabbi Heath Watenmaker, a recently ordained rabbi from HUC-JIR's Jack H. Skirball Campus in Los Angeles, writes, "I imagine not many people can say that their first act as a rabbi was to become a father. But I can. In his ordination address, Rabbi Ellenson spoke about ordination as a personally and spiritually transformational experience. I had long imagined the awesome power of this day and spent a great deal of time considering what it would mean on a personal and spiritual level to take on the mantle of rabbi. What I didn't know was that as I sat listening to these words that morning was that my wife, then 9 months pregnant, was sitting twenty rows behind me quietly entering the beginning stages of labor. Near the end of a very long day, my beautiful son, Ilan Theodor, was born at 11:19 PM. To think that my time at HUC-JIR - where I met and fell in love with my wife, engaged in soul-stirring learning, and grew as a leader of my community - would end with the birth of my first child, on the day of my rabbinical ordination, seems as if it was somehow pre-determined."

Rabbinical students from HUC-JIR/Cincinnati are leading a relief effort for the tiny Jewish community in Joplin. There are a number of Jewish communities in the United States that are too small to support a full-time rabbi. HUC-JIR provides student rabbis who run the congregations, in places like Grand Forks, ND; Sandusky, OH; and Joplin, MO. "Because it's so small, it's very close knit and that makes it more of a special relationship for the student rabbi." Stephanie Covitz was the student rabbi in Joplin last year. Now, she and this year's student rabbi, Ariel Boxman, are collecting supplies and raising money. "It's unspeakable. It's incredible what happened. It took me awhile to really wrap my head around what happened. The services Friday night will be a good place to start rebuilding, and coming together and seeing each other and supporting each other."

Rabbi Ruth Abusch-Magder, Ph.D., Editor of Tzeh U'limad, HUC-JIR's Blog of Continuing Jewish Learning, writes, "Born and raised in Bombay in a Bene Israel Jewish family and educated in Catholic and Zoroastrian Schools, artist Siona Benjamin brings many influences and cultural understandings into the bold art she creates -much of it based on Jewish stories. Her current exhibition at the HUC-JIR Museum in New York, The Croll Center for Jewish Learning and Culture, is an illustrated Esther Megillah and is on display until the end of June." Abusch-Magder's article includes an interview with Benjamin; Benjamin explains the Jewish content in her work and sheds light onto why so many characters are painted blue.

Rabbi David Ellenson, Ph.D., President, HUC-JIR, will participate in the JCC in Manhattan's Tikkun Leil Shavuot, an updated version of the ancient festival of Shavuot, when the ancient Israelites stayed awake all night at Sinai anticipating the revelation. Rabbi Ellenson will host "A Responsum on Conversion" on Tuesday, June 7, 2011 from 10:00-11:00 pm at the third floor south gym at the JCC.

The Skirball Museum at HUC-JIR/Cincinnati presents "An Immigrant Comes to Jewish Cincinnati: The Art and Life of Simeon Zigler" at the gala opening of the new fourth floor of the Skirball Museum on Sunday, June 26, 2011. Join HUC-JIR/Cincinnati at 4:00 pm for a Jewish Chamber concert at Scheuer Chapel, followed by an opening and reception at Mayerson Hall at 5:30 pm. Free and open to the public. Please RSVP to outreach@HUCinci.org.