Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of rabbis, the spiritual leaders of Jewish congregations.
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Opinion The Political Rabbi’s Survival Guide
On my desk, there is a small black and white photograph depicting the late Rabbi Arthur Lelyveld of Cleveland, his face bloody from a beating that he suffered at the hands of segregationists in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, during the Freedom Summer of 1964. It is now more than a half century later, and from what I…
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News Her Journey From Hasidic Rabbi To (Happy) Transgender Woman
Abby Stein is almost certainly the only ordained Hasidic rabbi who is also a woman. Stein wasn’t female when ordained, of course. She was a young man, soon to be married to a woman also from the strict Satmar community in which they were both raised. While Stein – then named Yisroel and nicknamed Srully…
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Life Orthodox Women Rabbis ‘Ruin’ Judaism — Really?
First I saw the headline: “Women Rabbis Ruin Judaism for All Women.” Then the bio, a photo and name confirming a woman author, Rahel Rocklin. The ensuing Times of Israel post was bound to be an odd one, but I could not have guessed how odd, or, rather, odd how. -It is an argument about…
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Opinion Criminal Intent: Why This Rabbi Went To Jail To Protest Trump
On Feb. 6, I was one of 19 rabbis to go to prison to protest the Trump administration’s recent restrictions on immigration and the acceptance of refugees. Organized by T’ruah: the Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, we were the largest group of rabbis to be arrested at one time in American history. Like many American…
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Fast Forward WATCH: Protesting Rabbis Get Arrested on Purpose Outside Trump Hotel
Eighteen rabbis were arrested on Monday night after sitting down in the street in front of New York’s Trump International Hotel in protest against President Donald Trump’s ban on refugees and immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries. Accompanied by hundreds of protesters, the march started on the Upper West Side and wended its way to the…
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Life The Hypocrisy of the Orthodox Union’s Ban on Women Clerics
I almost didn’t bother to write this piece. I’m not Orthodox, and in any case, the Orthodox Union (OU)’s recent statement barring women from serving as clergy feels like an announcement of its own obsolescence. But as a scholar of Jewish women’s history; as the executive director of the Jewish Women’s Archive which has documented…
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Fast Forward 18 Rabbis Arrested in Protest of Muslim Ban at Trump Hotel
NEW YORK (JTA) — Eighteen rabbis were arrested at a protest of President Donald Trump’s refugee ban in front of the Trump International Hotel in New York City. The rabbis, who had gathered as part of a conference hosted by T’ruah, the rabbis’ human rights group, were arrested for obstructing traffic in front of the…
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Breaking News Mayer Abramowitz, Rabbi to Miami’s Cuban Exiles, Dies at 97
(JTA) — Rabbi Mayer Abramowitz, who opened the doors of his Miami Beach synagogue to waves of Cuban exiles beginning in the early 1960s, died Thursday at his home in Miami Beach. He was 97. Abramowitz, longtime leader of Temple Menorah, ministered to hundreds of young Jews who arrived in the United States as part…
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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 Justin Trudeau condemns antisemitism after Montreal pro-Palestinian protest where Netanyahu is burned in effigy
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Culture There aren’t Jewish fighters in Ridley Scott’s ‘Gladiator II.’ But what about in ancient Rome?
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Fast Forward Three arrested in murder of rabbi in United Arab Emirates; Israel denounces ‘despicable antisemitic act’
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News Trump promised peace in the Middle East. Will his 2020 plan be the blueprint?
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