Rabbi Daniel Cotzin Burg, Author at JMORE

The Danger of Incuriosity

by Rabbi Daniel Cotzin Burg | Jan 7, 2021 | Blogs, Blogs & Opinion

In a student paper at Morehouse College, a young Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, “The function of education … is … to think intensively and to think critically. But education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society. … We must remember that...

Kindness Should Never be Weaponized in the Struggle for Equality

by Rabbi Daniel Cotzin Burg | Nov 17, 2020 | Blogs, Blogs & Opinion

My family and I were recently volunteering for the nonpartisan group Baltimore Votes at the Highlandtown Pratt Library early voting site. A Black man walked out of the polling place, and we offered him some refreshments and a sign to put in his window. He declined,...

The Exurban Rabbi? Not So Fast!

by Rabbi Daniel Cotzin Burg | Oct 6, 2020 | Blogs, Blogs & Opinion

“Alas! Lonely sits the city once great with people! She that was great among nations is become like a widow” (Lamentations 1:1) I’ve dedicated my career to the celebration of urban living and, in particular, urban Judaism. In my adult life I’ve gravitated toward...

Memories of Freddie Gray and those Fiery ‘Five Days’ of Reckoning in Baltimore

by Rabbi Daniel Cotzin Burg | Aug 11, 2020 | Baltimore, Community, Education, High Holidays, Local, Maryland, National, Religion, Spirituality

In his new book “Five Days: The Fiery Reckoning of an American City” (One World), Wes Moore describes his experience on Apr. 27, 2015, the day Freddie Gray was laid to rest. Moore had attended the funeral but left early to catch a plane to Boston for a speech he was...

Justice Delayed is Justice Denied

by Rabbi Daniel Cotzin Burg | Jul 24, 2020 | Community, Religion, Spirituality

Back in February, before COVID-19 struck and the world shut down, I was in Washington, D.C., with a few hours to spare before a class. I found myself in the National Gallery of Art, staring at an 1845 portrait of President Andrew Jackson that looked eerily familiar....