Rabbis from the Reform and Conservative Jewish movements will participate in the White House’s annual High Holidays conference call on Friday, a change in procedure after two years without participating. Rabbi Debra Newman Kamin, the president of the Rabbinical Assembly, the union of Conservative rabbis, told the Forward on Thursday that their board had taken…
It’s a dilemma familiar to many a not-so-observant Jew as late September rolls around: fork over hundreds of dollars for High Holiday services or scandalize bubbe by skipping out altogether. Fortunately, in NYC some synagogues are opening their doors to wandering Jews during the High Holidays. Other organizations have sprung up specifically provide free and…
Democratic lawmakers and politicians are calling on the House to cancel its upcoming recess — which includes Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur — and begin impeachment proceedings immediately, possibly upending the 27 Jewish members’ High Holiday plans, the Hill reported. The House should cancel its break and start impeachment proceedings now. As the whistleblower made…
When I arrived at the Whitney Plantation in Louisiana earlier this summer, a staff member handed me a card with a photo of a statue of a young girl wearing a yellow dress. A quote on the back of the card explained that before this girl, Carlyle Stewart, was freed at the age of seven,…
You may have heard this one: The story is told of the melamed, the wise schoolteacher, who was walking along the back streets of Chelm one dark night when he was accosted by a masked bandit with a large pistol. “Your money or your life!” the bandit said. “Take my life,” the melamed replied. “I’m…
Arnie Gluck has served the congregation Temple Beth-El of Hillsborough, New Jersey, for 28 years. Sarah Gluck, who is married to Rabbi Gluck, is in her 18th year as the synagogue’s director of education. Shira, the couple’s younger daughter, is in her final year of study at the Reform movement’s Hebrew Union College, where she…
(JTA) — When Rabbi Emily Losben-Ostrov took her North Carolina congregation on a Rosh Hashanah boat ride on the Cape Fear River, she hadn’t intended for the body of water’s name to be taken literally. The Wilmington Reform synagogue was performing the ritual of tashlich, in which Jews throw pieces of bread into the water to…
All year long, we wait for the Day of Atonement to seek forgiveness for acting on our sinful inclinations. This year, we will be better. This year, we will shed our skin of all the times we laughed too hard at Sacha Baron Cohen’s jokes. We will finally vote in midterm elections. We might even…
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