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Breaking News Barney Frank Retiring From Congress
Longtime congressman Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), the first openly gay representative, is set to announce his intention not to run for reelection in 2012. Frank told reporters gathered in the town hall in Newton, Mass., that Capitol Hill is no longer a place for a get-things-done type of lawmaker. “The kind of inside work I…
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News Conservatives Grapple With Gay Wedding Rite
Having recognized gay rights with their 2006 acceptance of gay unions, Conservative rabbis are now wrestling with the issue of gay rites. The recent efforts of three leading rabbis to construct a kosher wedding ceremony for same-sex couples hews closely to the traditional Jewish heterosexual ceremony, in an effort, they say, to ensure that same-sex…
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Culture How ‘Gay’ Lost Its ‘Shtick’ Over Time
Orin Hargraves, who describes himself as “an independent lexicographer and contributor to numerous dictionaries,” has sent me an Internet article whose point of departure is a June column of mine about the Yiddish word “shtick.” There I pointed out that “shtick” has acquired a new meaning in American English — that of a gripe or…
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Culture Vayera — He Appeared
Genesis 18:1–22:24 You Shall Hear the Cry of the Oppressed The thought of commenting on Parashat Vayera immediately prompts the desire to write something soothing, to get away from the binding of Isaac, the destruction of Sodom and the strange story of Sarah’s strange pregnancy. The portion has other, gentler lessons to teach – for…
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Culture How Gay Rights Teaches Us Torah
Most religious affirmations of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people have been “negative” ones: They argue that Leviticus (and Romans and Corinthians) doesn’t really prohibit homosexuality, or that ancient prohibitions should be set aside in the age of the iPad. But isn’t there a “positive” case, as well — that biblical religious values support the…
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The Schmooze Gay Rights Pioneer Franklin Kameny Dies
Franklin Kameny, the pioneering gay rights leader whose Jewish identity inspired some of his historic activism, has died at age 86, the Washington Post reports. As the Forward wrote last year in an 85th-birthday profile, Kameny “became a vocal activist at a time when other downtrodden and discriminated-against gay people scarcely dared to show their…
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Life LGBT Heroes Posters: An Outdated Approach?
Keshet, an organization that works for the full inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Jews in Jewish life, has issued its first three “Jewish LGBT Change Makers” posters through its Hineini Education Project. When I took a look at them online, I was immediately reminded of the Jewish Women’s Archive’s “History Makers” (formerly “Women…
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Life Will Israeli Court Decision on Surrogacy Bring Changes for Gay Couples?
I’m in Israel for a month reporting on a number of different stories, including a magazine piece about the growing number of Israeli gay couples who are having children with the help of gestational surrogates and egg donors in foreign countries. Although there is no law explicitly banning the use of surrogacy in Israel by…
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Fast Forward Was the viral Ta-Nehisi Coates interview a hit piece or fair play? A journalism ethics expert weighs in.
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Culture How my odious cousin Roy Cohn was responsible for creating Donald Trump — and me
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Culture New conspiracy theory just dropped — Jews are causing the hurricanes
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Sports 5 Jewish things about the Mets — and why Jewish fans adore them
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Opinion Forgiveness has its limits: a Yom Kippur reflection on justice
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Opinion Atoning during a war feels impossible. Instead, resolve to do better
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