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Dear Friends,
Without your generous financial support, we could not fulfill our mission. Therefore, we ask you to make your generous membership donation for 5783 by filling out the form at the bottom of this page.
As we look back on 5782, the first thing that comes to mind is the loss of our dear Rabbi and Teacher, Rabbi David Weiss Halivni Z”L, who was instrumental in the founding of the Union for Traditional Judaism (UTJ) and who served as Reish Metivta of the Institute of Traditional Judaism (ITJ). We have done our best in the past months to bring honor to his memory, by hosting a memorial for Rav Halivni and by collecting many tributes to Rabbi Halivni in a special section of our UTJ Viewpoints website. In the coming year, we hope to further honor Rav Halivni’s memory by presenting programs that reflect on the spiritual and intellectual impact of his scholarship.
During 5782 we continued to grow UTJ’s audience through our UTJ Viewpoints website, our email list, and our social media following on our Facebook page, Facebook discussion group, Twitter, and Instagram. These offerings, articles, videos, and programs from a UTJ perspective reach thousands of Jews, and, we hope, draw them closer to our unique outlook on Jewish life, law, and scholarship.
Also in 5782, UTJ’s rabbinic fellowship, Morashah, completed its own set of bylaws so that it can best move forward in building that special community. Morashah performs a vital role in UTJ’s mission, providing support to rabbis and the congregations they serve and helping to share UTJ’s Torah with those congregations. If you are a halakhically observant rabbi who broadly identifies with UTJ’s Declaration Of Principles please consider seeking membership in Morashah by filling out the online membership application.
As we move forward into 5783, we are dedicated to continuing the UTJ mission which Rav Halinvi inspired, modeling emuna tserufah v’yosher da’at (genuine faith and intellectual honesty) while advocating for a passionate, open-minded approach to Torah study and observance of Jewish law (Halakhah). We have a series of High Holiday related programs coming up (click on the flier below to register for the programs) and more events are in the early stages of planning. Much of our efforts this year will be dedicated to increasing our volunteer base to help us maximize the impact of what UTJ already offers and to help us envision other future successes. If you are interested in volunteering, please let us know by emailing office@utj.org.
We wish everyone a very happy and healthy new year and a meaningful High Holiday season.
b’Shalom,
Rabbi David Novak, President
Rabbi Gerald Sussman, Executive Vice President