Rabbi Debra Kolodny February 2021 Origin story Many scholars say that the word ivri, or Hebrew, comes from the verb root avar, to cross over. From this we learn that embedded in the core identity of the Jewish people is the invitation or perhaps the mandate to cross over–to transcend our current status and seek something deeper, higher, better and find the bridge between here and there. Equally imbedded in our collective consciousness is another meaning of the word avar-to transcend boundaries-to imagine and then live into new...
Compiled by Rabbi Debra Kolodny RabbiDebra@asthespiritmovesus.com Lionel Blue, ordained as a rabbi in 1960, was the first British rabbi to publicly declare himself a homosexual, in 1980. The Jewish Renewal movement emerged in 1960’s, never having a policy against ordaining LGBTQ people. It didn’t ordain its first LGBTQ clergy until 2006, however. 1984: Reconstructionist Rabbinical College changed policy to ordain LGBTQ rabbis. Late 1980s: the primary seminary of the Reform movement, the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of...
A Panel discussion of the legacy of Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (1924-2014) with Rabbi Chava Weissler, Rabbi Or Rose, and Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, moderated by Dr. David Shneer, professor of Jewish Studies, with a minhah service led by Rabbi Debra Kolodny, and an introduction by David Friedman and Rabbi Tirzah Firestone, and chief archivist Bruce Montgomery, at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado on January 11th, 2011. Video by Michael Kosacoff. From the year 2000 to 2014, Boulder psychotherapist, Michael Kosacoff...
Born in Far Rockaway in New York City, Rabbi Debra (D’vorah) Kolodny (they/them) is a veteran of social justice movements, bringing a spiritual perspective and an activist’s passion to racial and economic justice, women’s, environmental, peace, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual (LGBTQIA+) causes since 1981. Rabbi Debra serves as the spiritual leader of Portland’s UnShul here in Oregon, and as the Executive Director of Portland United Against Hate (PUAH), a coalition of more than 80 community organizations,...
