http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/129499Rabbis to Pray for Obama at Inauguration Events
Tevet 23, 5769, 19 January 09 04:22
by Malkah Fleisher
(IsraelNN.com) Among approximately 20 clergy who have been invited to participate in the inauguration events for President-elect Barack H. Obama on Tuesday and Wednesday, three rabbis have been included, representing Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox Jews in America.
Orthodox Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, Conservative Rabbi Jerome Epstein, and Reform Rabbi David Saperstein will take part in the National Prayer Service on Wednesday, January 21, in a practice dating back to the inauguration of President George Washington. It will be held at the National Cathedral at the conclusion of the inaugural activities.
The service will include scriptural readings, prayers, hymns and blessings delivered by religious leaders from across the United States.
Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, who was the long-standing principal of the elite Ramaz Jewish day school in Manhattan, and is the rabbi of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun, will recite a prayer at Obama's inauguration ceremony. Rabbi Lookstein, who has a long history of activism, traveled to Russia four times to meet with refuseniks and activists during the 1970s and ’80s when Jews were forbidden to live as Jews and prohibited from leaving the country. He was also vocally opposed to participation in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, citing China's poor record on human rights.
Rabbi Jerome Epstein, Executive Vice-President of The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, will also recite a prayer as part of the National Prayer Service. Rabbi Epstein has advocated within the Conservative movement for greater inclusion of families with one Jewish parent or mixed religious affiliation. In 2003, Epstein co-signed a public cross-denominational statement in support of Aliyah to Israel. He has also publicly advocated for the presidential pardon of Jonathan Pollard, signing a joint letter with Raymond Goldstein, the Conservative movement's president, to President George W. Bush in December.
Rabbi David Saperstein, who delivered the invocation at the Democratic National Convention's final session before Senator Barack Obama accepted the party's nomination for president, will recite a psalm at the ceremony.
As well as being on the board for the NAACP and the homosexual advocacy group People for the American Way, Rabbi Saperstein has served as the director and chief legal counsel at the Union for Reform Judaism's Religious Action Center for more than 30 years.If inclement weather does not thwart the travel plans of many inauguration attendees, organizers are expecting approximately two million people to attend Washington's various inauguration events.