In America, we agonize over what counts as really Jewish, instead of asking where and how people can use Jewishness to make their own lives better and help others to make their lives better. Like any community afflicted by puritanism, we confuse markers of others being exactly like us, and limit our understanding of authenticity to that with which we are comfortable.

Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, “The Year of Principled Pragmatism,” Looking Ahead…Looking Back: A Special Supplement to the Florida Jewish Journal & the New York Jewish Week (24 February 2012), 2.

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