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.
JNS: The real reason for Western support of the Palestinians
Oct 14, 2021
In her column examining the “incomprehensible animus against Judaism and the Jewish people,” Melanie Phillips quotes our Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch: “Of all the savageries in the sordid history of human affairs, what explains the singling out of the Jews for unique odium? … No other supremacist ideology is as singularly fixated on one group of people. It is not only the hatred of a Jew. Many antisemites have never met a Jew in their lives. It is the obsession with Jewry, the Jewish people” as “… the source of evil in the world.”
Tablet: Stop Enabling the Antisemites Who Live Closest to Our Homes
Sep 26, 2021
“The more recent explosion of antisemitism awakens in me a dire, depressing, demoralizing dread,” writes our Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch in Tablet Magazine. “If there is one lesson to absorb from the Holocaust, it is when someone proclaims an intention to exterminate the Jews, believe them. Take them seriously.”
JTA: Shuls, Zooms and nightclubs: Where to do High Holiday services in New York City in 2021
Sep 1, 2021
No one expected a guide to virtual High Holiday services to become an annual thing. These institutions have been working all summer to make their services, however and wherever they are held, authentic, powerful, uplifting — and safe — spiritual experiences.
Times of Israel: Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch sees no future for Reform Judaism without Israel ties
Aug 24, 2021
“I speak publicly about Israel, not necessarily to convince people to change their positions but first and foremost to assert to Jews that their Jewish instinct is right,” says our Rabbi Hirsch in an interview published in The Times of Israel. “In the media and on social networks they hear only negative things about Israel, so here, in their synagogue, they’ll hear what really happens there. What I say represents the vast majority of American Jews and the Reform movement.”
Cleveland Jewish News: Rabbi [Richard] Hirsch recalled as giant in Reform movement
Aug 20, 2021
Remembering his father, our Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch told the Cleveland Jewish News: “He founded the two great… ideological institutions of the second half of the 20th century of Reform Judaism… the Religious Action Center, which set into motion the future of the Reform movement’s social justice agenda, and one of the key decisions of the 20th century of the Reform movement was his decision to move the international headquarters of the Reform movement to Jerusalem.”
Times of Israel: ‘Israel is Broadway; the Diaspora is Off-Broadway’ – Rabbi Richard Hirsch z’’l
Aug 18, 2021
“I loved Dick. He was one of my most important Zionist mentors. I love his son, Rabbi Ammi Hirsch of the Stephen S. Wise Free Synagogue in Manhattan. Dick loved that Ammi and I are dear friends and whenever I spoke with Dick not only did he remind me how much he appreciated Ammi’s and my friendship, but that we Reform rabbis have a sacred and solemn duty to the Jewish people to teach and motivate our communities to understand that Progressive Zionism is the social justice movement of the Jewish people,” writes Rabbi John L. Rosove, memorializing Rabbi Richard G. Hirsch z”l in the Times of Israel.
RNS: A great leader dies — and with him, a whole generation
Aug 17, 2021
The death of Rabbi Richard G. Hirsch z”l “marks the end of an era in Reform Judaism — an era in which great leaders shaped the intellectual, moral, and political fabric of our movement,” writes Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin in Religion News Service. “How powerful — that his son Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch has inherited his voice, and has made it his own.”
JTA: Rabbi Richard Hirsch, who eulogized Martin Luther King Jr. and helped guide the Reform movement to Zionism, dies at 95
Aug 17, 2021
Rabbi Richard G. Hirsch z”l died Monday. “He became the leading advocate for Reform Zionism… he helped found ARZA, the Reform movement’s Zionist affiliate (his son Ammiel, also a rabbi, led ARZA from 1992 to 2004).”
Makor Rishon (Hebrew): ‘There is fear among the Reform rabbis. They are afraid to speak for Israel.’
Jul 27, 2021
After nearly 100 Reform and Conservative rabbinical and cantorial students signed a letter accusing Israel of apartheid, our Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch told Makor Rishon: “The Reform movement must see itself as a Zionist movement that supports Israel, and the education it provides and all its policies must reflect these values.”
The Forward: Morrie Arnovich, not Jacob Steinmetz, was baseball’s first Orthodox player
Jul 26, 2021
When the media overlooked the first Orthodox Jewish baseball player, Morrie Arnovich, our Cantor Dan Singer set the record straight about one of his hometown heroes and shared some of Superior, Wisconsin’s rich history in an article he wrote for The Forward.
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