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.
France’s chief rabbi rejected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s suggestion that European Jews should flee to Israel. “France without Jews is not France,” Rabbi Haim Korsia said, speaking at a press conference after a February 19 event with New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio at the Park East Synagogue in Manhattan. “[Netanyahu’s] job is…
Rabbi Barry Freundel, the former spiritual leader at a prominent Washington synagogue, has pleaded guilty to 52 counts of peeping on naked women in the mikveh, several news outlets reported. Freundel admitted using three different hidden cameras to capture different naked women in the ritual bath from different angles. “Guilty,” Freundel, a bearded figure wearing…
Lev Meirowitz Nelson grew up at a Conservative Jewish day school and a Conservative synagogue. When he decided to apply for rabbinical school, however, he didn’t even consider a Conservative seminary. Instead, Nelson applied to Hebrew College, the new, progressive, nondenominational seminary in Boston, where he was ordained in 2013. It’s a path that more…
It’s easy to look at the struggle for justice in the Deep South through the lens of Hollywood dramas like ‘Driving Miss Daisy’ or ‘Selma.’ Things are a bit trickier when the battles are real — but that’s exactly what Rabbi Elizabeth Bahar faces every day at Temple B’nai Sholom in Huntsville, Alabama. Whether it’s…
Rabbi Barry Freundel secretly videotaped at least 150 women in the mikveh at his prominent Washington D.C. synagogue, prosectors reportedly told a meeting of alleged victims. The disgraced Orthodox cleric has been criminally charged with peeping on six naked women in the ritual bath at Kesher Israel. But prosecutors said the number of victims is…
Rachel Timoner, a trailblazing Los Angeles rabbi, has been tapped as senior rabbi at Congregation Beth Elohim, replacing Andy Bachman at the helm of the prominent Brooklyn Reform synagogue, the Forward has learned. “What comes next is an exciting chapter in the long, esteemed, and ever-unfolding history of Congregation Beth Elohim,” Timoner said in an…
New details have reportedly emerged in the case of an Ohio rabbi accused of sexually abusing a Jewish Baltimore girl. Although his seminary rabbi called Rabbi Frederick Karp a “very fine young man,” the Baltimore Jewish Times reports he is accused of molesting a girl who is now 12 for five years — and her…
An Ohio rabbi charged with sexually abusing a Maryland girl was ordered held on $500,000 bail and to turn in his passport, officials in Baltimore said on Thursday. The rabbi, 50-year-old Frederick Karp, was charged Wednesday with sexually abusing the minor between July 2009 and December 2014 while visiting with her family in Baltimore. Karp…
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