Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of rabbis, the spiritual leaders of Jewish congregations.
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The Latest
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Opinion How Knesset Push Will Actually Help Chained Women Worldwide
Israeli lawmakers are considering a law that would help Orthodox women across the world. Jewish law does not permit a woman to divorce her husband without his consent, and in Israel and abroad, a number of women who wish to leave their husbands are unable to do so. These women are known as agunoth –…
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Opinion Why Move to Free Chained Women Will Only Further Shackle Them
On Monday, the government of Israel announced that it found a solution to a problem that has long plagued Orthodox women. A new bill purports to help agunoth, or women who haven’t received a religious bill of divorce (known as a get) from their husbands. This means that they are chained to these husbands (agunah…
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News Did AIPAC Secretly Write Your Rabbi’s Sermon?
AIPAC may have secretly written your rabbi’s sermon. Each week, the pro-Israel lobby the American Israel Public Affairs Committee sends out two prewritten sermons to rabbis across the United States, pushing AIPAC’s legislative agenda and its policy goals. And each week, AIPAC reminds rabbis that they shouldn’t tell congregants where they got the pre-written texts….
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Breaking News Rabbis Puzzled By Conservative Movement’s ‘No-News’ Intermarriage Stance
NEW YORK (JTA) — “It doesn’t help.” “I don’t know how it happened or why it happened.” “The most common response I’m seeing is confusion.” That’s what some Conservative rabbis are saying about their movement’s recent major statement on intermarriage, which reasserts the ban on rabbis performing interfaith weddings while urging its member synagogues to…
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Fast Forward Hasidic Rabbi Pleads Not Guilty In Vermont Police Chase
A Brooklyn rabbi pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to charges that he led police on a 4-1/2 mile car chase in Vermont, the AP reported. Rabbi Berl Fink was pulled over at gunpoint in August after failing to stop after being suspected of speeding on a remote highway. Berl was driving his wife and two…
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Opinion The OU Is Right: Orthodox Women Shouldn’t Be Rabbis
Most of a rabbi’s roles can be halachically and effectively assumed by women, and have been for many years. A rabbi must be learned in Jewish texts and the practical laws pertaining to daily Jewish life — and Orthodox women’s seminaries teach thousands of young Jewish women those laws, and do a top-notch job of…
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Fast Forward Rabbis Plan Sukkot Protest At Trump Tower Over Immigration
A group of rabbis is planning on staging a Sukkot-themed protest against the administration’s immigration policies outside Trump Tower on Monday. T’ruah, the rabbinic human rights organization, will erect a sukkah in front of President Trump’s residence on Monday morning in attempt to demonstrate how the administration’s decision to ban refugees and immigrants from certain…
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Fast Forward Rabbi Writes Anti-Gun Protest Prayer After Las Vegas Shooting
As Americans process the horrific Sunday night shooting in Las Vegas, one rabbi has put pen to paper, writing a protest prayer-poem about gun violence. Titled “Unetaneh Tokef for America,” Rabbi Douglas Sagal’s poem protests the inability of politicians to pass gun control – and links to it a deadly epidemic of a firearms violence….
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Fast Forward Why neo-Nazis marched in Ohio this weekend, and almost every weekend in the US
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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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Opinion Just about every interpretation of Trump’s narrow election victory is wrong
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News Texas schools want to add Queen Esther to the curriculum. Here’s why Jews (and many Christians) are opposed.
In Case You Missed It
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Fast Forward Chabad rabbi killed in United Arab Emirates; Israel denounces ‘despicable antisemitic act’
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Fast Forward Rep. Ritchie Torres, outspoken pro-Israel advocate, is dropping hints that he could run for NY governor
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Fast Forward Ursula Haverbeck, infamous German Holocaust denier known as ‘Nazi grandma,’ dies at 96
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Fast Forward A Jewish museum in Tulsa held a funeral for remains of Holocaust victims it kept for years
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