In an address to thousands of North American and Israeli delegates, World Jewish Congress President Edgar Bronfman called for the rewriting of synagogue services, which he said are now “long, boring and repetitive to the young Jews of today.” Speaking at the closing plenary of the General Assembly of UJA Federations of North America, Bronfman said, “Our synagogues and temples don’t belong to the rabbis.” The Jewish people need “more of a Beit Midrash than a Beit Knesset,” he said, using the Hebrew words for “house of study” and “house of prayer.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
