EDUCATION RESOURCES
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Not seeing what you're looking for on our website? In need of some guidance? Complete the form below and we will do our best to direct you to or provide you with accessible materials and resources to help answer your Jewish history trivia question, and/or incorporate Reform Jewish practices and principles into your community, or in your life.
The Rise of Reform Judaism
By Rabbi W. Gunther Plaut
Covering the first one hundred years of the movement - from the time of the eighteenth-century Jewish Enlightenment leader Moses Mendelssohn to the conclusion of the Augsburg synod in 1871 - these pages allow the founders who established Liberal Judaism to speak for themselves through their journals and pamphlets, books and sermons, petitions and resolutions, and public arguments and disputations. Important topics within Judaism are addressed including philosophy and theology, religious practice, synagogue services, and personal life, as well as controversies on the permissibility of organ music, the introduction of the sermon, the ritual of circumcision, the observance of the Sabbath, the rights of women, and the authenticity of the Bible.
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Sponsored by Philip and Eileen Hoffman on behalf of Roots of Reform Judaism.
The Growth of Reform Judaism
By Rabbi W. Gunther Plaut
A sourcebook of the original writings that shaped the second century of organized Liberal Judaism, the featured selections help us to understand the emergence and character, problems, and tensions of Reform Judaism as it developed and grew in modern times. In addition to the primary text, it includes a forward by RRJ (formerly SCRJ) founding director Rabbi Howard Berman, and an epilog by former Hebrew Union College President, Dr. David Ellenson.
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Sponsored by The Larry and Bonnie Pike Family Charitable Fund on behalf of Roots of Reform Judaism.