Congregation Shaarei Shamayim

08/06/2026

Join Expanding Our Conversation on Israel-Palestine on Wednesday, August 26 as we welcome Rabbis Shaul Magid and Nancy Fuchs Kreimer. We will meet on Zoom at 8:00 p.m. Eastern, 7:00 p.m. Central, and 5:00 p.m. Pacific.

This year's Elul program launches our fall series, "Tzedek, Tzedek Tirdof: Pursuing Justice in 5787." Our speakers will reflect on what obligations (if any) we have to the Jewish people and individual communities, what Jewish tradition might teach us regarding our own communities, North American politics, Israel, and the Palestinian people, and how we can think about the future of both legacy Jewish institutions and possible alternative Jewish structures.

Register: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/GGHSnAoxQ1SwmxfBcGIWDA #/registration

Rabbi Shaul Magid, PhD is currently Professor of Modern Jewish Studies in residence at the Harvard Divinity School. He previously taught Jewish Studies at Dartmouth, Indiana University, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and Rice University. Shaul was ordained in Jerusalem and has served as the rabbi of the Fire Island Synagogue since 1997. His many books and essays include, most recently, The Necessity of Exile: Essays from a Distance (Ayin Press, 2023) and Meir Kahane: The Public Life and Political Thought of an American Jewish Radical (Princeton University Press, 2021). He is a member of the American Academy for Jewish Research and the American Society for the Study of Religion.

Rabbi Nancy Fuchs Kreimer, PhD is currently the president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinic Association. She is the founding director of the Department of Multifaith Studies and Initiatives at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and a founding board member of the Interfaith Center of Greater Philadelphia; Shoulder-to-Shoulder, an initiative of the Islamic Society of North America; and the Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom. Nancy co-authored Strangers, Neighbors, Friends: Muslim-Christian-Jewish Reflections on Compassion and Peace (Wipf and Stock, 2018). Her most recent book chapter, “Interreligious Education at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College: A View From the Jewish Edge,” appeared in 2020 in Experiments in Empathy (Brill).

Our three-session fall series will explore how we can create justice in the new year. Join us and our speakers as we think through our obligations to different social and political communities. Our next two programs will explore our obligations to North American societies (October) and our obligations to Palestinians and the future of Palestine (December). More details will be coming soon.

07/24/2026

Sharing a statement by Madison's Jewish clergy
https://bit.ly/4wYdjnq

05/01/2026

Come work with us! We are hiring three different positions - check out www.shamayim.org/employment.

01/22/2026

Please share:
Rabbi Rena Blumenthal is teaching this five-week class February 3-March 3 -- 7:00pm EST, 6:00pm CST, 4:00pm PST.

After the destruction of the Second Temple, it was unclear how Judean culture and religion could survive without a homeland and a temple-based sacrificial cult. But the rabbinic movement managed to transform Judean culture into a system of beliefs and practices that could survive and flourish under the conditions of exile. How did they themselves understand this radical transformation? This class will do a close reading of rabbinic stories that manage to convey the extraordinary vision that led to Judaism as we currently understand it. This will be primarily a discussion-based class.

Course fee: $72 for members, $108 for non-members. Scholarships are available.

Register: https://www.shamayim.org/event/it-is-not-in-the-heavens.html

01/22/2026

Very proud that the Reconstructionist movement, along with the Reform and Conservative movements, signed this joint statement.

𝗡𝗘𝗪 𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗧𝗘𝗠𝗘𝗡𝗧: 𝗝𝗲𝘄𝗶𝘀𝗵 𝗖𝗿𝗼𝘀𝘀-𝗗𝗲𝗻𝗼𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗔𝗴𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁 𝗩𝗶𝗼𝗹𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗜𝗺𝗺𝗶𝗴𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗘𝗻𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗰𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁

Adding our voices to millions of others across the United States, leaders of the Reform, Conservative/Masorti, and Reconstructionist Movements of Judaism condemn, in the strongest terms, the violence with which the Department of Homeland Security is enforcing American immigration law—above all, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, as well as in cities and towns across the nation.

Many Americans are deeply disturbed as they see their neighbors targeted for detention and deportation in their homes, at work, at their schools, and at their houses of worship. They are deeply concerned about numerous accounts of the use of intimidating and violent detention tactics, dangerous and unhealthy holding facilities, lack of appropriate warrants or due process, and wrongful apprehension of US citizens or individuals with proper visas based on appearance or language.

In response, some are taking nonviolent steps to warn and protect their neighbors from this immigration enforcement overreach. The right to protest and speak freely are fundamental American rights, protected by the United States Constitution. Too often, though, nonviolent protest and civil disobedience is being met with violence.

The United States is a nation of laws, and as Americans we expect that our laws will be enforced with clarity and consistency. We are pained by reports and videos indicating that in carrying out their assignment, members of law enforcement are engaging in behavior that escalates confrontation, risking the safety of those suspected of having violated the law, of bystanders and protesters, and their own safety. Candidates for law enforcement must be properly vetted, fully and carefully trained, and held accountable when they do not meet appropriate standards. Such accountability includes investigating complaints fairly, transparently, and impartially, particularly but not only, in cases of officer-involved shootings. To that end, we call on the Department of Justice to investigate the shooting death by an ICE officer of Renee Good, z”l.

Our sages taught that the Book of Deuteronomy’s directive צדק צדק תרדף (Tzedek, tzedek tirdof), “Justice, justice shall you pursue” (16:20), implies that the law must be enforced through a fair process, and that one should pursue justice whether it would be to one’s advantage or to one’s loss.

Immigrants are members of our congregations, our families, and people with whom we interact in our broader communities. American Jews cherish our own families’ immigration stories. We recall that, like many being expelled from America today, we or our ancestors came to this country to escape oppression and find opportunity. That is why so many Jewish congregations, rabbis, cantors, and lay leaders have engaged in a variety of legal actions to protect immigrants in our midst. We grieve an American promise that seems to be no more.

We who lead the North American Reform, Conservative/Masorti, and Reconstructionist Jewish Movements stand with the members and leaders of Jewish communities in Minneapolis—and before that, in the Chicago area and other cities in the United States—who have confronted Immigration and Customs Enforcement nonviolently, legally, but resolutely. We fear that additional communities will need to be prepared to do the same in the months ahead.

We call on President Trump and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem to pursue immigration enforcement and their response to protest through just and non-violent means, upholding our nation’s highest values and commitment to due process and the rule of law.

• LINK: https://www.ccarnet.org/jewish-cross-denominational-statement-against-violent-immigration-enforcement/

Thank you to our partners:
• ReformJudaism.org
• Union for Reform Judaism
• Reconstructing Judaism
• United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism
• American Conference of Cantors
• Rabbinical Assembly
• Cantors Assembly
• The Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association