Jennifer Siegel
By Jennifer Siegel
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Israel News Sinatra Bio Explores Icon’s Jewish Connections
Frank Sinatra may have been one of America’s most famous Italian Catholics, but he kept the Jewish people close to his heart. For years, the Hollywood icon wore a small mezuzah — the encased prayer scroll traditionally hung on the doorposts of Jewish homes — around his neck. The pendant was a gift from Mrs….
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News Critics Charge JTS Board With Power Play in Search
Board members of the flagship institution of Conservative Judaism have executed what critics are describing as a power play aimed at limiting the say of the faculty and other arms of the movement in selecting a new leader. Movement insiders say the maneuvering could tilt the selection in a more traditionalist direction. Last month, the…
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News Study of Interfaith Kids Upends Ideas of Identity
Advocates of outreach to interfaith couples are touting a new survey that they say upends previous arguments against efforts to reach out to the children of mixed marriages. The survey, released last week by the Jewish Outreach Institute, found that young adult children of intermarried couples maintain strong cultural ties to the Jewish community, despite…
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News Holocaust Revisionists Take On Mideast Policy
The leading Holocaust revisionist group in America is set to go on the offensive this month with a meeting in New York to discuss the “Jewish-Zionist role in fomenting war in the Middle East” and a protest in Los Angeles at the Simon Wiesenthal Center. The Institute for Historical Review argues that 6 million Jews…
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News Questions of Gays, Interfaith Couples Roil Conservatives
As leaders of Conservative Judaism face looming decisions about the future, the movement is facing new internal challenges to its restrictions on gays and lesbians and on interfaith couples. In recent days, more than 90 Conservative rabbis have signed their names to the Web site of a new group that pledges to fight against “all…
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News Hasidim Rally Against Disengagement
Hundreds of Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidim gathered in New York City last week to rally community opposition to Israel’s plan to dismantle settlements in Gaza and the northern West Bank. The rally, held June 23 at the movement’s worldwide headquarters in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, featured Arieh Eldad, a Knesset member from the National Union…
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Culture Conservative Jews In Israel Splitting With Top Leader
The Israeli branch of the Conservative movement is set to part ways with its longtime president, Rabbi Ehud Bandel, the Forward has learned. Movement insiders familiar with the situation say that the Israeli branch, known as Masorti, faces a severe budget crisis. In an effort to close the gap, one source said, Bandel is being…
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Culture ‘Who Is a Taoist?’ Principal’s Job Hinged on Definition
Academic politics are often esoteric and never pretty. But in what appears to be a first, the fate of a middle-school principal in West Orange, N.J., was determined by a rabbinic debate over the definition of “who is a Taoist.” For months, Aaron Kriegel, a pulpit rabbi in West Essex, N.J., has urged officials at…
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Opinion The group behind Project 2025 has a plan to protect Jews. It will do the opposite.
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News Texas schools want to add Queen Esther to the curriculum. Here’s why Jews (and many Christians) are opposed.
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