Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of rabbis, the spiritual leaders of Jewish congregations.
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Life Reining In Our Rabbis
Though appalled, I laughed when I first heard about Rabbi Barry Freundel. How he hid cameras in the mikveh to watch his congregants and conversion protégés undress and prepare for ritual immersion. The image that came to my mind was that of the boy in my third grade class who tried to peek up my…
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Breaking News Israel’s Chief Rabbi: No Plans to Remove Riskin
JERUSALEM (JTA) — The Chief Rabbinate has no intention of removing Efrat Chief Rabbi Shlomo Riskin from his position, Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi David Lau said. “There has never been any intention to push out Rabbi Riskin,” Lau said Wednesday in remarks at the Meir Harel Yeshiva in Modi’in, where he led a class for retirees….
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News Who’s Investigating Rabbis Who Cross the Line?
A rabbi who surfs the Internet for transsexual escorts stands trial for borrowing and stealing almost $500,000 from his congregation to pay off an extortionist. Another rabbi is sentenced to more than six years in jail for videotaping naked women in his synagogue’s ritual bath. A third rabbi is being told to leave his pulpit…
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Breaking News Sauna Rabbi’s Riverdale Congregation Moves to Oust Him
The Riverdale Jewish Center reportedly is seeking to get rid of Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt, whose habit of inviting young males to join him for naked heart-to-heart talks in the sauna was the subject of a recent article in The New York Times. In a meeting Monday night, the board of directors of Rosenblatt’s Orthodox synagogue…
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News Marc Schneier Booted From Rabbinic Group Over Affair
Rabbi Marc Schneier, the spiritual leader of a tony congregation in the Hamptons, has been expelled from the Rabbinical Council of America, the Forward has learned. The five times married Schneier was quietly expelled from the Orthodox rabbinical group earlier this year in relation to allegations, in 2010, that he had an extramarital affair with…
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News Reconstructionists Shake Up Boring Annual Report With Web, Video — and Even a Christian!
The Reconstructionist Rabbinical College has released what may be the quirkiest annual report in the mundane history of Jewish annual reports. Instead of the standard-issue PDF, chock full of corny staged photos and tritely colored financial bar graphs, the RRC built its 2015 report into an interactive website that captures the democratic essence of the…
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Breaking News Shlomo Riskin Controversy Bares New Feud for Israel Rabbinate
(JTA) — There’s no shortage of Israelis who want to reform the office of the Chief Rabbinate. Ranging from advocates of religion-state separation to leaders of Israel’s non-Orthodox movements to newspaper columnists, some want to end the Rabbinate’s monopoly over the country’s religious services; others want to dissolve it entirely. But this week, the Rabbinate…
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Life How Israel’s New Coalition Agreement Affects the Rabbinate
Israeli Rabbinical Court Judges, in accordance with Orthodox tradition, are all men. These Judges wield enormous power, in accordance with Israeli civil law, granted to them by the Knesset. The law states that Israeli State Rabbinical Courts have sole jurisdiction in determining the fate of all of Israel’s residents who are Jewish or wish to…
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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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News What Mike Huckabee’s ‘Kids Guide to Israel’ says about his views
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