Media coverage of Stephen Wise Free Synagogue has included feature articles and highlights in the many local, national and international news outlets. Below is some select coverage that highlights the synagogue.
Press inquiries may be directed to Communications Director Ryan Greiss at rgreiss@swfs.org or (212) 877-4050, ext. 267.
Jewish Insider: Diaspora affairs minister ‘doesn’t accept’ delays to Kotel plan
Dec 15, 2021
Following a report that the Israeli government has frozen the implementation of a deal for a state-recognized egalitarian prayer section at the Western Wall, our Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch told Jewish Insider he was “disappointed” but not surprised just days after positive discussions he and others had with Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Nachman Shai on the subject.
MacaroniKID: Early Childhood Education Is More Important Now Than Ever
Dec 6, 2021
Children who missed out on a year of schooling are at a disadvantage, writes Miriam Kalmar, our ECC’s director. “Your children’s futures – and our future as a society – depend on their developing healthy social emotional skills that will ensure their lifelong success.”
CNN: Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch with Alisyn Camerota and Victor Black
Dec 2, 2021
On CNN Newsroom, our Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch discussed Fox News host Lara Logan’s comparisons of Dr. Fauci to Josef Mengele: “It’s demoralizing, despicable and depressing that our culture has deteriorated to the point that we can’t disagree without equating each other with the worst evil we can think of.”
Times of Israel: For the love of Israel, we need to say: The Reform Movement is Zionist
Nov 30, 2021
In The Times of Israel, our Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch urges the Reform movement to respond to recent publicity around seminary students’ anti-Zionist sentiments and clarify its values and principles: “For the record, the Reform movement is a Zionist movement. Every single branch of our movement – the synagogue arm, the rabbinic union, and our seminary – is Zionist and committed ideologically and theologically to Israel.”
JTA: This catchy ‘West Side Story’ Hanukkah parody was filmed on location in New York
Nov 23, 2021
New York-based Jewish a cappella group Six13’s latest “A West Side Chanukah Story” was filmed on location in New York, including here at Stephen Wise Free Synagogue.
Times of Israel: It Ain’t Necessarily So: Guy Mintus Sings Gershwin
Nov 20, 2021
In his Times of Israel blog, our Cantor Dan Singer analyzes Israeli jazz musician Guy Minuts’s unique take on “It Ain’t Necessarily So” from “Porgy and Bess.”
Detroit Jewish News: My Superior (Wis.) Jewish Genealogy
Nov 2, 2021
Our Cantor Dan Singer follows up on his last article about his hometown hero, Jewish baseball player Morrie Arnovitch, with some exciting genealogical discoveries…
eJewish Philanthropy: Jews have more than an obligation to repair the world
Nov 1, 2021
There is some truth to the criticism that the Reform movement seems to focus on tikkun olam, not as an expression of Jewish peoplehood, but at its expense, writes our Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch in eJewish Philanthropy. Judaism is both particular and universal. Social justice divorced from the centrality of Jewish peoplehood isn’t Jewish universalism; it is just universalism.
A World Series of Genealogical Discoveries
Oct 26, 2021
In Times of Israel, our Cantor Dan Singer follows up on last his article about his hometown hero, Jewish baseball player Morrie Arnovitch, with some exciting genealogical discoveries…
Mosaic: Left-Wing Anti-Semitism Is No Worse Than the Right-Wing Variety, but It Is More Likely to Go Unnoticed
Oct 19, 2021
Mosaic highlighted our Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch’s piece in Tablet Magazine. “I spend so much time emphasizing the anti-Semitism of the hard left not because I believe that the anti-Semitism of the extreme right is any less pervasive or dangerous,” Rabbi Hirsch wrote. “But I am a liberal rabbi leading a Reform synagogue composed of mostly liberal Jews. And in my view, many liberal Jews are misled by the high-sounding rhetoric of anti-Zionist students, liberal professors, thought leaders, influencers, and media and social-media personalities.”
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