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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