Emerging to the Top

There's more to Newsweek's just-published list of America's top 25 pulpit rabbis than meets the eye.

It goes without saying that each person on the list has accomplished extraordinary things, and inclusion in the list is but partial recognition of that.

More broadly, though -- and credit goes to one of their number for noticing this -- the fact that nearly 20% of the rabbis on this list (specifically, Rabbis Andy Bachman, Sharon Brous*, Asher Lopatin, and Rachel Nussbaum) are Jewish emergent leaders challenging conventional definitions of synagogue community and creating new forms of connection across the boundaries of spirituality, learning, and social justice means that whether or not people call it "emergent" or "new" or anything else, something is happening in American Judaism and it's beginning to stick.

These creative leaders are doing the work, separately and together, to build 21st-century Judaism, work which rightly continues to attract notice. It's a privilege to count them as friends & colleagues, and to support & celebrate their leadership.



*Rabbi Brous appears on both Newsweek lists. She also appears on the top 50 influential rabbis list, too, as does Rabbi Naomi Levy, who also leads an emergent community.