Stephen Wise Free Synagogue

I'm Rabbi Ami Hirsch of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York, and this is In These Times.

My guest today spent years in top national security roles in the Bush and Obama administrations and served as a spokesperson at the United Nations.

But Hagar Shamali's personal story is just as fascinating.

Dr. Stephen S.

Wise, rabbi of the Free Synagogue, on A Senator with a Conscience.

A telegram was read from Jacob S. Schiff, lauding Sumner as standing for the highest moral issues of his time.

This was followed by the reading of a poem on Sumner, composed by W.P. Stafford.

Is it a rainbow bagel? Stephanie, don't get crazy, okay? Just when I'm getting out there, you push me too far.

For the Chagim, I went to Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, which is a synagogue on the Upper West Side, wonderful community, wonderful clergy, where I worked for seven years.

It was kind of like my first job as a rabbi.

And it was wonderful to be back there to pray.

And during the Hakafah, where they walk around with the Torah, it was like...

An all-out jam session where we had just been in this incredible low of sort of marching through many challenging moments in Jewish history through word and song, but ended up on this incredible high where... you know, we were just belting Am Yisrael Chai out from our souls, dancing in the aisles, and it just felt like a true celebration of Torah and of the Jewish people.

So my good for the Jews is the creative afternoon service at Stephen Wise Free Synagogue.

That sounds amazing.