The Sudan refugee crisis, hunger and hurricane relief were focal points of the opening session of the Union for Reform Judaism’s biennial in Houston. As several dozen members of Gulf Coast Reform congregations displaced by Hurricane Katrina marched in Wednesday night carrying Torahs rescued from the floods, Rabbi Robert Loewy of Gates of Prayer in Metairie, La., thanked the URJ for its new fund-raising campaign to support the four New Orleans-area Reform congregations. The 4,200 convention delegates were handed pledge cards to donate to the fund. Delegates passed a resolution honoring the 20th anniversary of Mazon: A Jewish Response to Hunger, which calls upon members of Reform congregations to donate 3 percent of the cost of their life-cycle celebrations to the hunger relief organization. The URJ honored the president of the American Jewish World Service, Ruth Messinger, who spoke about her recent work aiding refugees in Darfur and urged delegates to support the bipartisan Darfur Peace and Accountability Act. Among several resolutions the URJ will vote on during its four-day biennial are a resolution on the war in Iraq, which demands that the Bush administration provide “a clear exit strategy to the American public;” and a resolution Sunday opposing the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Samuel Alito.
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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.
