Rabbi Rick Jacobs designed the ceremony that installed him as president of the Union for Reform Judaism to broadcast his vision of what the Reform movement — the largest denomination in American Jewish life — should be.
Rabbis and cantors led songs by Orthodox Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach and by Reform folksinger Debbie Friedman at the June 9 event. A 100-member gospel choir sang and got most people in the packed sanctuary on their feet and swaying. The choir came from Greater Centennial A.M.E. Zion Church in Mt. Vernon, N.Y., near Westchester Reform Temple in Scarsdale, N.Y., where Jacobs was the rabbi for 20 years. The new president of the Reform youth movement, an 18-year-old biracial man, chantedf the week’s Torah portion.
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