It’s no easy chore to find Reform rabbis who deviate from their movement’s liberal orientation on matters ranging from the revelation at Sinai to the Israel-Palestinian “peace process,” and who are unafraid to say so in public. One of them is John Moscowitz, who throughout his adult life has been out of step with friends and colleagues politically, intellectually, and theologically. His fascinating journey, from radical left-wing activist to outspoken spiritual leader of a 6,000-member congregation in Toronto, Canada, is on display in a recently published collection of his sermons, speeches, and writings entitled The Evolution of an Unorthodox Rabbi.
Born in 1952 to secular parents in the American Midwest, the youthful Moscowitz attended college in Los Angeles, graduating in 1975 as a certified member of the fuzzy countercultural left. A flirtation with the harder politics of the New Left soon brought him to San Francisco, where it turned into more than a flirtation. There he joined a circle of about a dozen radicals working with Tom Hayden, co-founder of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and anti-Vietnam-war agitator, and Hayden’s then-girlfriend Jane Fonda.
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