Collaboration? We do it already

Orthodox Jews have no problem with the call for unity by the non-Orthodox movements

Last week's Statement of Collaboration by the non-Orthodox movements to work together is good news for the community. It is a commitment by these movements to rise above their differences and to collaborate with each other.

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Obama’s rabbinic relative shows our diversity

Michelle Obama's cousin is a rabbi who says biblical Jews were black. That's not much odder than many of our beliefs.

The news emerged this month that Barack Obama's wife has a rabbi in the family. Michelle Obama's cousin is Rabbi Capers Funnye.

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Livni’s hairstyle is irrelevant

The new Kadima leader's main strength is her pragmatism, not her womanhood

‘Wife, mother, secret agent" ran the breathless headline in The Times on Wednesday, anticipating Tzipi Livni's win in that day's Kadima primaries. In case anyone had failed to notice the potential sexiness of this story, the first paragraph emphasised that Livni was a "blonde former Mossad secret agent", just ahead of the de rigueur reference to Golda Meir.

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A Chief Rabbi’s reality gap

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Why we must urgently co-operate: Danny Rich

Delegitimising other Jews puts our future at risk

Pluralism in thought and deed has always been at the heart of Liberal Judaism, which seeks to combine the best of Jewish tradition with the gifts of modernity.

Pluralism is a means of welcoming, and living with, diversity and divergence, of pursuing one's own fragment of truth whilst acknowledging the equal validity of another's.

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Why we must urgently co-operate: Jonathan Wittenberg

We have allowed our differences to damage people. This must stop

Our statement is a call to pluralism, a plea that leaders and members of all denominations should articulate the core values of Judaism clearly and together, so that we guide the community with vision and responsibility, in a spirit of sensitivity and inclusion. It is no more than we pray for daily in the Aleinu, when we ask that God's name be made one on earth.

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Why we must urgently co-operate: Stephen Moss

Synagogue movements cannot reach everyone - unless they work together

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Without our schools, we are doomed

Last week our Jewish day schools celebrated yet another outstanding set of results, and we should be immensely proud of them. Anyone who is anxious about the Jewish future should visit our schools. There they will see a quiet miracle: the West's oldest faith becoming young again on the faces and in the minds of our children. That is where the Jewish future is being written, and it is a strong, knowledgeable and committed future.

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Why does Israel make it so hard to visit Eilat?

Israel's Red Sea resort of Eilat is not, it seems, nearly as popular with the Anglo-Jewish market as it once was. Statistics from Israel's Ministry of Tourism reveal that the number of British visitors has plummeted from a high of 45,000 in 1997 to a low of 5,000 in 2003 - recovering to just 6,000 last year.

So why are we no longer flocking to Israel's south to soak up the winter-round sunshine, luxuriate in its world-class hotels, snorkel round the coral reef, take desert tours or generally chill out - all just five hours' flying time from London?

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Give our rabbis more authority

The flip-flopping over who can eulogise at funerals is part of a power struggle within the United Synagogue.

Goldberg the gangster has breathed his last and is about to be laid to rest. The local rabbi has gone out of town, his children are estranged, so at the funeral, the sexton asks: "Since it is the custom to say a few words in memory of the deceased, would anyone like to give the eulogy?"

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