Shalom chaverim! We’re an online community of Jews building something meaningful. We’re passionate about:

• Torah study as a way of connecting to the divine and improving ourselves

• improving Jewish education. Too many synagogues have classes for beginners but little to sustain those of us who want more.

• healing the fractured Jewish community. Kol Yisrael Arevim Zeh Bazeh.

• We draw from the wisdom of our classical and modern rabbis, including those from Conservative Judaism, Hadar, Open Orthodoxy, the Jewish Catalog, Masorti movement, neo-Hasidism, the philosophy embracing wing of Modern Orthodoxy, and the tradition-embracing wing of Reform Judaism. Jews of any or no denomination are welcome with love.

• Accepting Jews whether Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Maghrebi or Mizrachi; whether born Jewish or who converted; married or unmarried; straight or gay; more observant or less observant; rationalist or mystic.

• When it comes to history we consider Marc Shapiro’s “Changing the Immutable: How Orthodox Judaism Rewrites Its History.” No one is criticized for citing scholarship that doesn’t match strict traditional beliefs.

• When it comes to theology we consider Marc Shapiro’s “The Limits of Orthodox Theology: Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles Reappraised.” Judaism certainly has important theological parameters, but they are wider than what Haredi sources claim.

Read resources here on our website, and join us in our Facebook discussion community, the Coffeehouse.

Contact us at jewish.merrimack@gmail.com