Personal Perspectives / Deborah Rood Goldman

#BeLikeEsther: Show Us How You Stand Up for What’s Right

Long ago in Persia, before tweets and 24-hour news cycles, a royal vizier named Haman had the ear of King Achashverosh, a foolish and malleable man. When a Persian Jew named Mordechai enraged Haman by refusing to bow down, Haman vowed not only to punish Mordechai, but to exterminate all the Jews of Persia. With Mordechai’s help, our hero was Esther, a smart and tenacious Jewish woman who bravely stepped up to the plate. Esther gained clout with the farshtinkener (stinking) king, and bravely wor

What Happened When I Met 51 Other Temple Presidents

It was a “no brainer” for me to attend the URJ Scheidt Seminar for congregational presidents last month in San Diego. Because I work for the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ), I wasn’t sure I’d be eligible to attend. However, my supervisor approved the conference, and my colleagues encouraged me to go – knowing that as president of my congregation, Garden City Jewish Center in Garden City, NY, I would have a terrific experience. Of course, the idea of leaving New York for sunny San Diego in mid-Feb

Union for Reform Judaism Blog • 26th February 2018

The Value of Experimenting: Why We Invited a Golden Retriever to Shabbat

I’m a bit of an insomniac, partly due to the amount of time I spend, even in my sleep, dreaming up ways to engage young families. As president of a small congregation, it’s a constant challenge to offer excellent speakers and programs that motivate more than just us die-hard, longtime regulars to attend Friday night services. Last October, I attended the Union for Reform Judaism’s valuable day of learning, “How Successful Congregations Embrace Change,” where we learned about Harvard Professor M

If It’s Tuesday, This Must be Haifa: An In-Depth Israel Tour

I've tagged along on my husband Steve's business trips to England and France, and visited my daughter the semester she studied art in Sienna, but how was it that until last month I had never set foot on Israeli soil? Taglit-Birthright Israel didn't exist when I was younger, and the right time just had not presented itself. The stars seemed to line up for me to jump at Rabbi Linda Henry Goodman and Rabbi Stephen Wise Goodman's invitation to go on the Union Temple/Garden City Jewish Center's "Bre

Passing Down the Dishes for Passover

The year was 1969. President Lyndon B. Johnson had left office, my older sister had gotten an AM/FM stereo radio for her birthday, and I was steadily collecting LPs, biking to school, and getting 75 cents an hour to babysit. That year, Passover rolled around at the beginning of April. A week before the seders, my dad took his six-foot step ladder out of the garage and positioned it at the top of the steep steps leading down to the basement, directly below the ceiling cutout that opened to our at

The Nudge of Selichot

After 10 weeks of swimming, biking, walking at the ocean's edge, and rationalizing that it's too hot for tennis, Saturday night Selichot services appear on my calendar as the call back from the freedom of summer. According to Mark Washofsky in his book Jewish Living, it is a mitzvah to prepare for the Days of Awe, and Reform practice, adapted from Ashkenazic custom, is to recite selichot (poems of supplication and penitence) late at night, usually on the Saturday night that precedes Rosh HaShana

The Promise of Shabbat

I was stunned the first time my then-8th grade daughter Rebecca called me on a Friday afternoon to inform me that she wouldn’t be home for dinner. Yes, she knew it was Friday night. And yes, she understood that it was Shabbat. As I hung up, I comforted myself by chalking it up to the beginning of adolescent rebellion. I hadn’t witnessed much adolescent rebellion growing up with my six sisters. None of us would have dreamed of not being home on Friday nights, a time when no one took babysitting

Shabbat Meditation

I wrote this meditation when I was a member of the Shabbat Committee at Temple B’nai Or in Morristown, N.J. It is meant to be read before L’cha Dodi at Friday evening services. Open my heart tonight to welcome Shabbat in the natural way I did as a child—open, unquestioning, believing. Leaning against my father, Shabbat melodies became mine as the fringes of his tallit slipped through my fingers again and again. The mixed joys of hugs and handshakes crushing, yet reassuring, hot tea, the peace