List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction David N. Myers Part I. First Sermon 1. Chapel Sermon, October 30, 1948 Commentary by Rabbi Samuel Karff Part II. Inspirations 2. Sigmund Freud, May 11, 1956 Commentary by Professor Peter Loewenberg 3. Bertrand Russell’s Autobiography: Three Passions in Life Commentary by Dr. Joan Beerman 4. Looking at Kafka, January 8, 1982 Commentary by Professor Saul Friedlander 5. The Legacy of MLK, January 15, 1982 Commentary by the Reverend James M. Lawson Jr. 6. First Encounter with George (Regas), April 13, 2005 7. Why the Prophets Are Important, May 20, 1983 Commentary by Professor Jack Miles Part III. Faith, Doubt, and Duty 8. Handwritten Reflections on Doubt, undated Commentary by Rabbi Rachel Timoner 9. Can We Excommunicate God? April 30, 1965 Commentary by Professor Rabbi Rachel Adler 10. Duty of the Rabbi, undated Commentary by Rabbi Richard Levy 11. From the Diary of a Leo Baeck Temple Rabbi, February 5, 1971 Commentary by Rabbi Kenneth Chasen 12. Rabbi Beerman’s To-Do List 13. Yom Kippur Eve—Vocation of a Rabbi, September 17, 1972 Commentary by Rabbi Sharon Brous 14. Fast between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur to Protest Munich and Vietnam, September 1972 Commentary by Professor Steven J. Ross 15. My Troubles with God; God’s Troubles with Me, February 9, 1979 Commentary by David Rintels 16. The Beginnings of an Outline for Jews to Consider, undated Commentary by Aziza Hasan Part IV. Social Justice 17. The Kindest Use a Knife, October 16, 1953 Commentary by Rabbi John L. Rosove 18. Is There a Relationship between Judaism and Social Justice? April 14, 1954 Commentary by Rabbi Zoë Klein 19. The Problems of the City: A Jewish Dilemma, February 4, 1966 Commentary by Professor Rabbi Aryeh Cohen 20. UCLA Teach-In on Vietnam War, March 24, 1966 Commentary by Rabbi Sanford Ragins 21. Notes for Symposium on Black Power, January 6, 1967 Commentary by Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller 22. Letter to President Lyndon Johnson, April 13, 1967 Commentary by Judith Viorst 23. Rosh Hashanah Eve, September 30, 1970 (5731) Commentary by Professor Jonathan D. Greenberg 24. How I Lost the Election in St. Louis, July 9, 1971 Commentary by Professor William Cutter 25. Invocation for Religious Leaders for McGovern, June 1, 1972 Commentary by the Reverend J. Edwin Bacon 26. Survival in a Nuclear Age, February 17, 1984 Commentary by the Reverend George F. Regas 27. California People of Faith against the Death Penalty, October 16, 2001; April 20, 2002 Commentary by Mike Farrell 28. Piece on Human Condition Written for the Office of the Americas, November 2, 2002 Commentary by Stephen Rohde 29. A Vision for a Bewildering Time: Commencement Address at Washington & Jefferson College, May 18, 2007 Commentary by Professor David Ellenson 30. Letter to President George W. Bush, April 11, 2008 Commentary by Norman Lear 31. Human Rights Watch, November 17, 2009 Commentary by Jane Olson 32. A Sermon for All Saints, July 3, 2011 Commentary by Mel Levine Part V. Israel/Palestine 33. Time in Israel, Parts I and II, November 1967 Commentary by Daniel Sokatch 34. CCAR Breira Statement, 1977 Commentary by Professor Michael A. Meyer 35. Yom Kippur Morning, October 11, 1978 Commentary by Milton Viorst 36. Yom Kippur Eve, September 26, 1982 Commentary by Connie Bruck 37. Visions of Peace in the Middle East, October 31, 1992 Commentary by Salam al-Marayati 38. A Sermon for Yom Kippur Morning, October 1, 2006 Commentary by Rabbi Brant Rosen 39. Exchange of Letters with Bruce Ramer, October 2006–January 2007 Commentary by Bruce Ramer 40. A Sermon for Yom Kippur Morning, October 4, 2014 Commentary by Professor Nomi M. Stolzenberg Sayings of Leonard I. Beerman Notes List of Contributors Index

"Myers is one of the leaders in the field and eminently qualified as editor. His scholarly reputation is stellar, and his own knowledge and work in progressive Jewish political circles puts him on a national stage."—Marc Dollinger, author of Black Power, Jewish Politics: Reinventing the Alliance in the 1960s "The current regime has only made the urgency of this volume, a book that so powerfully and eloquently articulates a strong prophetic American Jewish stance, that much more important. Religion is not in the United States or for that matter elsewhere in the world only or exclusively the domain of the political right. This book shows us a genealogy, a legacy of alliance politics that is theologically and ethically bound to a shared vision of social justice."—Laura Levitt, Professor of Religion, Jewish Studies and Gender, Temple University, and author of American Jewish Loss after the Holocaust