Hebrew Seminary’s newly ordained Rabbi Tirtzah Israel featured on Israeli TV
Thank you so much to broadcast journalist Andrew Roesgen!
Tirtzah Israel by George Castle
https://www.chicagojewishnews.com/2017/11/amazing-grace-she-is-african-american-hearing-impaired-and-a-senior-citizen-tirtzah-israels-path-from-her-baptist-church-upbringing-to-becoming-an-ordained-chicago-rabbi/
Hebrew Seminary Ordains New Rabbi
SKOKIE, IL, November 6, 2017 – Tirtzah Israel, from Chicago’s West-Englewood Community, was ordained by Rabbi Dr. Douglas Goldhamer on October 29th at Hebrew Seminary Rabbinical School for Deaf and Hearing. Growing up, Tirtzah’s grandmother role-modeled a personal and meditative connection to HaShem that both perplexed and inspired her. As an adult Tirtzah was introduced […]
The Visualization of Hebrew Grammar through Ancient Hand Signs
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Skokie, Illinois, June 7, 2017. You may be familiar with Hebrew trope as the melodies you hear in services, but trope is best known for helping readers understand the texts. Trope brings Torah to today through the use of pauses to break verses into bite-sized phrases and clarify the meaning of Jewish texts. Hebrew Seminary’s summer semester begins June 27th and includes […]
Ministering to Body, Mind and Soul
This month I interviewed Hebrew Seminary faculty member Rabbi Cantor Rob Jury.
Since your May 2012 ordination from Hebrew Seminary, your career has taken two paths – Rabbi of Anshe Tikvah in Wheeling and Staff Chaplain at Advocate’s Addiction Treatment Program. Can you tell us how one led to the other and how your Hebrew Seminary education prepared you?
I see them as one single path […]
The Earth As Sanctuary
From the Pen of Executive Director Alison C. Brown
Parsha Tezaveh discusses the materials and steps necessary to perform service to God in the Sanctuary. As a metaphor, “Achieving any form of spiritual growth requires sustained effort and daily rituals.” [1] We call this avodah, service. Our intentional efforts and rituals create a space, a groove, carved into our life through practice that allows a […]
We Founded Hebrew Seminary on the Principles of Inclusion and Equality, by Douglas Goldhamer and Tom Giller
We founded Hebrew Seminary on the principles of inclusion and equality. We at Hebrew Seminary join with other Jewish religious institutions throughout the United States in condemning President Trump’s executive order suspending immigration from seven Muslim countries. We find discrimination against any religion to be antithetical to our Torah and to the beliefs of our founding fathers.
In 1779, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison proposed […]
Tu B’Shvat – Sing Praise, Happy Birthday, Then Back to Work!
“From the mystical perspective, reality is always both broken and perfect all at once,” Rabbinic Pastor Estelle Frankel says in an allusion to Isaac Luria’s Tikkun Olam, Repairing the World.
This week we celebrate Tu B’Shvat, which in contemporary times signifies the birthday of the trees. Even here in Chicago in February there is potential for spring, for becoming, as tree sap begins to rise […]
The Possibility of Hanukkah
by Executive Director Alison C Brown
The darkness and the Illinois cold makes me weary. Add to that, my birthday is soon. I need light. I need intention.
Va-neitzei, and We Left
On November 8th, we left home base as we each knew it. We left with a variety of feelings as Republicans and Democrats, just as Jacob left all that he knew in Be’er Sheva. Jacob was on the border of his future, just as we are today, fearfully or gleefully. Jacob was accompanied by angels. We are bombarded by social media and […]