NOTEWORTHY DEATHS

A photo provided by the Alliance for Jewish Renewal shows Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, a founder of the Jewish Renewal movement. Schachter-Shalomi died in his sleep after a long illness early Thursday morning, July 3, 2014, at his home in Boulder, Colo. He was 89. Schachter-Shalomi started the renewal movement in the early 1960s as a way to use contemporary religious and political scholarship to re-examine Judaism after the Holocaust.
A photo provided by the Alliance for Jewish Renewal shows Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, a founder of the Jewish Renewal movement. Schachter-Shalomi died in his sleep after a long illness early Thursday morning, July 3, 2014, at his home in Boulder, Colo. He was 89. Schachter-Shalomi started the renewal movement in the early 1960s as a way to use contemporary religious and political scholarship to re-examine Judaism after the Holocaust.

Founder of Jewish Renewal movement

BOULDER, Colo. -- Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, a founder of the Jewish Renewal movement and a widely influential figure in contemporary Jewish thought and practice, has died in his home in Boulder, Colo. He was 89.

Schachter-Shalomi, known to his followers as Reb Zalman, died Thursday morning in his sleep after a long illness, Rivkah Walton of the Alliance for Jewish Renewal said.

Schachter-Shalomi started the renewal movement in the early 1960s as a way to use contemporary religious and political scholarship to re-examine Judaism after the Holocaust. The nondenominational movement draws on Judaism's prophetic and mystical traditions, and Schachter-Shalomi was heavily influenced by Buddhism, Sufism and the Catholic mystic Thomas Merton.

The movement now includes 45 affiliated congregations and dozens of others not officially affiliated, Walton said.

Schachter-Shalomi was born in Poland in 1924 and raised in Vienna. His family fled Europe for the U.S. during the Holocaust.

The rabbi was among the first in Judaism to ordain women, and he was part of a group of Jewish leaders who traveled to India in 1990 to meet with the Dalai Lama, who was seeking counsel on leading people who live in exile.

He was a friend of Timothy Leary, known for his advocacy of psychedelic drugs. The rabbi experimented with LSD to see whether it could enhance spirituality.

He also came up with a way of chanting both the liturgy and Torah in English using traditional melodies, instead of the traditional chant patterns in Hebrew.

Metro on 07/05/2014

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