Ethical Monotheist leader rebukes those who “speak in our name”
Yoffie’s star just keeps on rising. I am working on a conspiracy theory on him…make take me a bit…and I may try to post it somewhere else…it’s pretty nifty, if I can fit all the pieces together.
Anyway…don’t you get fed up with all those Jewish political hacks who speak on behalf of all of us? Don’t you kinda want to slap them, sometimes? Well, guess what? Rabbi Yoffie doesn’t like it either!
The Forward reports,
Yoffie said it was critical for all Jewish leaders to realize that “nobody has the right to speak in our name.”
9 comments
You may not know this, but Yoffie is incredibly unpopular in the Reform youth movement, NFTY.
As many of the most involved NFTYites and many NFTY leaders become increasingly observant, while maintaining their Reform ideology, Yoffie is increasingly urepresentative of younger Reform Jews.
So, in turn, we are often irked by him speaking for us.
David A.M. Wilensky,
How is Rabbi Yoffie a hindrance to your observance?
He is not a hindrance. That’s not entirely my point. It is troubling, however, that the “official” version of Reform, which is currently characterized by Mishkan Tefilah, which many of us reject, is seen as somehow a more legitimate form of Reform observance.
By refusing to acknowledge the validity of a plurality of Reform aesthetics, those at the top of our movement alienate those of us that disagree with them.
Further, the alienation goes further when Yoffie, behind closed doors, snubs a series of NFTY presidents.
The current NFTY Prez, by the by, Zach Newburgh is a tzitzit-wearer, a fact which has made many Reform leaders uncomfortable. He also shuckles. Again, there is discomfort.
Their discomfort is again, alienating.
Don’t be naive. He doesn’t like people speaking in the name of the jewish people because it’s them and not him.
mohammed,
I think you don’t appreciate how different from haredi leaders this guy may be. He beats to a very different drummer than some money grubbing Rebbes fighting over turf to put their little hechsher on a chicken.
all people are equally corrupt. so he doesn’t have chickens on his turf? he has something else then.
Turkeys?
He doesn’t like people speaking in “our name”? Who’s “us”?
Give me a break. History will forget this guy the second he checks out.
I don’t think so…I don’t think people appreciate him yet…he isn’t some self-aggrandizing megalomaniac who thinks he owns the kotel, after all…but they will eventually.
Leave a Comment