Welcome to benkamin.com
the interactive web site for author, journalist, and spiritualist
Rabbi Ben Kamin

Op-ed Contributor

After over thirty years in high-profile and senior synagogue and agency positions, the publication of several books and hundreds of spiritually and community-based Op-ed and magazine pieces, countless electronic and print media interviews about his multicultural and religiously inclusive convictions, Rabbi Ben Kamin is now writing an ethics book entitled WHAT WOULD MOSES DO? — Life Lessons from God’s Best Friend. This new work molds Ben’s scholarship, narrative skills, and his nationally-read and broadcast philosophy of guilt-free, post-denominational spirituality and leadership skills. In the tradition of Laurie Beth Jones’ Jesus CEO and Anita Diamant’s The Red Tent, this is an entirely fresh take on “Moses, the man” (an-oft-repeated biblical phrase), which draws from the scriptural canvas but gives us an entirely fresh perspective on the visionary man who created civilization and good works.

Having been quoted by Ann Landers, been cited by Congressman Louis Stokes, former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus (“Ben Kamin can talk to anybody about anything)”, described by Psychology Today founder T. George Harris as “the most unique and clear voice in America for worldly spiritualism,” by the Cleveland Plain Dealer as “one of the key religious spokesmen around”, and by CNN legal correspondent Avery Friedman as “America’s rabbi,” Ben Kamin is now putting his theology, and his understanding of scripture as an “overwhelmingly human song to creation“ into print via the Moses saga. This will be his seventh book.

In an era of searing religious divisiveness, so evident in the 2008 presidential campaign, a time of theological righteousness that burdens good people with shame and feelings of inadequacy when they just want to know God, Ben Kamin, who once served as the Jewish liaison to the president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, and is heralded for his outreach work with interfaith couples, has launched his own new PBS Television talk show, Reconciliation with Rabbi Ben Kamin.  The program is currently based out of KOCE-TV in Huntington Beach, Ca., serving Los Angeles and Southern California. 

Rabbi Ben Kamin, the founder of Reconciliation: The Synagogue Without Walls, is a scholar of civil rights who has written extensively about Moses and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in countless articles and in previous books such as Thinking Passover (Dutton, 1997) and the forthcoming  Nothing Like Sunshine: A Story in the Aftermath of the MLK Assassination (Michigan State University Press, 2010). The latter is also being produced as a documentary for television by Enduring Freedom Productions. Meanwhile, Ben is writing the screenplay for the cinematic realization of his 2007 novel, Remora, also for Enduring Freedom Productions.

READ Rabbi Ben Kamin’s regular spirituality column in Examiner.com:
http://www.examiner.com/x-689-Spiritual-Life-Examiner

Rabbi Ben Kamin talks about Reconciliation and the Jewish High Holy Days - Listen to PodCast