Evolution of an Unorthodox Rabbi

Prominent Canadian rabbi John Moscowitz charts the shifts in his views over the years — controversial for some, exciting for others — on the issues that matter most to Jews today.

John Moscowitz is a different kind of rabbi, who early on spent a formative period as an antiwar activist under the wing of the New Left leader, Tom Hayden. Eventually dubious about the Left, alive with love for Israel, he matriculated to rabbinical school to learn about his people. This set him on a path to becoming, as Senator Linda Frum put it, one of Toronto’s “most cherished and effective rabbis.”

In the sermons gathered here, as well as in the commentaries written for this book, John Moscowitz charts the shifts in his thinking on the charged matters among Jews today: the possibility of peace between Israelis and Palestinians; rabbis as guardians of Jewish tradition; same-sex marriages; the nature of human evil; and, once having been exposed to the savannahs of East Africa, even the relationship between evolution and the Bible.

Part memoir, part social history, Evolution of an Unorthodox Rabbi is a deep examination of a long personal journey, one travelled in public as a prominent rabbi. Along the way, it captures what unites and divides an ancient people today.