Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of rabbis, the spiritual leaders of Jewish congregations.
Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of rabbis, the spiritual leaders of Jewish congregations.
Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of rabbis, the spiritual leaders of Jewish congregations.
Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of rabbis, the spiritual leaders of Jewish congregations.
Two Italian Jewish tourists survived the terrorist attack on the Bardo Museum in Tunisia. Alberto Di Porto, 71, and Anna Di Porto, 60, of Rome both managed to escape the shooting attack Wednesday in the capital city of Tunisia by gunmen wearing what appeared to be military uniforms which, according to reports at press time,…
The Central Conference of American Rabbis, the rabbinical arm of the Reform movement, installed its first openly gay president, Rabbi Denise Eger. Eger, 55, was inaugurated on Monday morning at the CCAR’s annual convention in Philadelphia. She succeeds Richard Block. The founding rabbi of the Kol Ami synagogue in Los Angeles, Eger has been on…
Avivit Ravia, one of two female kosher supervisors for Hashgacha Pratit, visits Carousela restaurant. Photograph by Naomi Zeveloff. There is a black and white photograph that my grandmother took of my great-grandmother hanging in my mother’s house and in the houses of all of my great-grandmother’s descendants. In it, my great-grandmother is standing at her…
A recent Forward article asked a provocative and troubling question: “Where Are All the Non-Orthodox Rabbis?” It pointed to a steep decline in enrollment at non-Orthodox rabbinical schools, which should prompt some new thinking. Here’s a start: Why not merge the Reform and Conservative seminaries? Last year, the non-Orthodox rabbinical schools admitted fewer than 100…
With the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in the news again, as President Obama proposed protecting much of the oil-rich land as wilderness, I am reminded of the summer I spent a few years back leading a sea kayaking trip through the Refuge. It was an experience of transformation I will never forget and will most…
Now that Rabbi Barry Freundel has pleaded guilty to peeping at 52 women while they went to the mikveh — prosecutors say he spied on 100 more women, but outside the statute of limitations — we finally can take off the qualifiers and accept that he is guilty. And that means we can begin some…
One of Israel’s two chief rabbis said he would not recognize conversions performed by municipal rabbis despite a government directive validating them. A recording of Yitzhak Yosef vowing to block the conversions was published Wednesday on the website kikar.co.il. The Sephardic chief rabbi said he would withhold his signature, which is still required to complete…
(Reuters) — An undercover FBI agent testified on Thursday in a case involving three Orthodox Jewish rabbis in New Jersey accused of kidnapping and beating husbands to force them to grant divorces under Jewish law to their wives. Special Agent Jessica Weisman, who went by the name Rachel Marconi during the operation, said she weaved a…
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