October 01, 2022

When Jewish leaders say “I was wrong”

46 minutes

I love that old song by Player: “Baby Come Back” — especially when the singer says: “I was wrong…”

It is not that easy to say. But, we do. Because we must.

In late July, the Sunday New York Times devoted an entire section to that topic – “I Was Wrong.” The editors of the New York Times invited a cadre of their op-ed writers – among them, as pictured above, Farhad Manjoo, Paul Krugman, Bret Stephens, and Gail Collins – to describe how they had been wrong about what they had once thought, and about what they had once written.

It was dazzling — an evocation of one of the themes of the High Holy Day season. “I was wrong.”

I asked several of my friends and colleagues — all of them, veteran thought leaders in the American Jewish community — to describe those moments in their careers when they were wrong, didn’t get it, or didn’t see something coming.

My guests:

Rabbi Dan Freelander, one of the senior leaders of the Reform movement – who has held many positions within the Reform Jewish world, and is retired from his position as president of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, and is a popular singer of Jewish music, with Kol B’Seder.

Rabbi Laura Geller, one of the first woman rabbis in North America; former Hillel director, director of Los Angeles office of the American Jewish Congress, and rabbi emerita of Temple Emanuel in Beverly Hills. She, along with her late husband Richard Siegel, is the author of Getting Good at Getting Older.

Rabbi Sherre Hirsch, a rabbi and author who currently serves as the Chief Innovation Officer for American Jewish University.

Rabbi Karyn Kedar, rabbi emerita of Congregation B’nai Joshua Beth Elohim in Deerfield, Illinois, and author

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