Alison Kaplan Sommer
By Alison Kaplan Sommer
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Israel News Reality TV Star’s Conversion Plight Reveals Orthodox Rabbinate’s Kafkaesque Grip
(Haaretz) — The struggle against the ultra-Orthodox grip on Israel’s Chief Rabbinate in issues of personal status in Israel has a new, and very attractive, poster girl. Alin Levy, an Israeli reality TV star, says she has been told she cannot complete the process of converting to Judaism because she is an actress. Levy blasted…
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Life Too Sexy for Purim?
(Haaretz) — It seems terribly appropriate that International Women’s Day was happening this year as Israelis were caught up with preparations for the holiday of Purim — and not just because it is the only Jewish holiday with a woman, the heroic Queen Esther, who saved her people by charming a king, at its center….
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News ‘Shul on the Beach’ Makes Orthodox Waves in Los Angeles
Did you hear the one about the Orthodox synagogue located between a rehab center and an erotic lingerie shop, steps away from medical marijuana clinics and tattoo parlors, with a dead-on view of a beach where bikini-clad sun worshippers frolic? If you haven’t, it means you’ve never been to the Pacific Jewish Center on the…
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Fast Forward USC cancels commencement speech from Muslim valedictorian after she shared link to anti-Israel website
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Fast Forward 2 House members lead the charge to oust the speaker. Both have been accused of trafficking in antisemitism.
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Opinion The head of the largest Christian Zionist organization is no friend to Israel — he wants an apocalypse there
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Opinion USC: Don’t blame Jews for canceling your valedictorian
In Case You Missed It
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Yiddish די פֿיר בנים וואָס לעבן אין מירThe Four Sons that live in me
אַמאָל העלפֿן זיי מיר אויפֿשטײַגן, און אַמאָל האַלטן זיי אָפּ מײַן פֿאָרויסגיין.
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News ‘Jewish enough to be murdered,’ but not buried in a Jewish cemetery
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Music A pioneering Jewish rock band got its start in 1965; they’re still slowly and steadily turtling along
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Fast Forward Israel reportedly strikes in Iran, days after fending off Iranian missile attack