This issue of the CCAR Journal explores the rapidly evolving intersection of artificial intelligence and the rabbinate. Through a range of reflective articles, contributors examine how AI is shaping Jewish life, leadership, and ethical discourse. The issue also contains general articles, new book reviews, and poetry.

This edition of CCAR Journal considers various topics, including loneliness and the rabbinate, Judah and Tamar's encounter, and Jewish brides' breads. The issue also contains new book reviews, poetry and a CCAR responsum on removing a pacemaker from a corpse for reuse.
 

This issue, which celebrates the centenary of the founding of the World Union for Progressive Judaism in 1926, examines the impact of the WUPJ on the growth of Progressive Judaism around the globe. The articles explore the early history of the WUPJ and the creation of rabbinic seminaries, youth movements, and liturgies, as well as key regions of the movement: the United Kingdom, Europe, South Africa, South America, Australia and Aotearoa-New Zealand, and Israel. The issue also contains new book reviews and poetry. 

This edition of CCAR Journal includes articles on women rabbis in South Africa, resurrection of the dead, chesed in Mussar, the Jewish history of bourbon, and much more. The issue also contains a book review, poetry, and a CCAR responsum on splitting cremated ashes for burial in two places.

The Winter 2026 issue of CCAR Journal: The Reform Jewish Quarterly contains articles on the golem, American civic health, Hebrew Union College's new rabbinical curriculum, and Jewish history in the Islamic world. A responsum on burial of a person in a pet cemetery and a translation of the preface to Jacob Sasportas’s Tol’dot Yaakov are also included, along with book reviews and poetry.

The story of sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests has sent shock waves around the nation and will not fade from consciousness or the news. We ask, "How could this happen?" And then we ask, "How could the Catholic Church let this continue for so long—in seeming silence and duplicity?" Paul R. Dokecki, a community psychologist at Vanderbilt University, an active Catholic, and a former board member of the National Catholic Education Association, investigates the crisis not only with the eye of an investigative reporter, but with the analytical skills and training of a psychologist as well. Moreover, he lays the foundation for reasonable and practical reform measures.

Through the scandal in the Archdiocese of Boston as well as the earlier, if less well known but momentous, case in the Diocese of Nashville, Dokecki reports on and analyzes what is ultimately an abuse of power—not only by the clergy but by church officials. As distasteful as these instances may be, they are compelling reading, enlightened by the author's abilities to contextualize these events through the lenses of professional ethics, the human sciences, and ecclesiology. According to Dokecki, these and other instances of clergy sexual abuse reveal a systemic deficiency in the structure and the nature of the church itself, one that has prevented the church from adequately dealing with its own worst sins.

Dokecki may shine a spotlight into the church's dark corners—but he does so in the service of enlightenment, calling the church back toward the vision of Vatican II and the spirit of Pope John XXIII—toward a greater transparency, a more open and participatory governance in the church, and for a greatly expanded role for the people of God who make up the church. It is in this way, Dokecki believes, the church will be better able to keep the innocent children of the church safe from harm.

When is abortion permitted? Should smoking be banned in synagogue buildings? Do we recite Kaddish for a convicted criminal? May human blood be sold for medical purposes? What is the Reform position on the use of mikvah? These questions and more are the topic of this volume, edited by Rabbi Walter Jacob and originally published in 1987. The questions included in this volume reflect the concerns of Reform Jews at the time the book was published, and much of it is still relevant today.
 

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This volume of Responsa was originally published in 1969 by Dr. Solomon Freehof, a leading scholar and Chair of the Responsa Committee of the Central Conference of American Rabbis. In these Responsa, Dr. Freehof presents his responses to questions concerning the observance and interpretation of traditional Jewish customs and law. Topics include conversion, holiday observance, medical ethics, ritual concerns, drug use, gambling, and much more.