Rabbi Avi Weiss is founding rabbi of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale and founder of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah and Yeshivat Maharat rabbinical schools. He is a longtime activist for Jewish causes and human rights.
Avi Weiss
By Avi Weiss
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Community Today is the anniversary of Operation Wedding, Soviet Jews’ daring hijack attempt
Fifty years ago today, on June 15, 1970, a small group led by Yosef Mendelevich, Mark Dymshits, Eduard Kuznetsov and Sylva Zalmanson attempted to steal a Soviet plane and fly it to freedom in an endeavor known as Operation Wedding. While the operation was foiled by the Soviet KGB secret police, leading to long prison…
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Community We Found Love And Healing In Pittsburgh
News of the largest attack against Jews in the history of America was devastating. 11 people were murdered during Sabbath services at the Tree of Life Congregation in Pittsburgh. Many rabbinic colleagues and I knew we just had to be there. As soon as we arrived, we made our way to the makeshift memorial in…
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Community Will The Holocaust Be Remembered 100 Years From Now?
It’s been 73 years since the end of the Holocaust. Most survivors are no longer here. My generation, the second generation, is getting older. We are transitioning from short term to long term memory. Indeed, the test of memory is not how we recall soon after an event, but how it is recalled long, long…
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Community Remembering The Carnage And Crises Of The Crown Heights Riots
Twenty five years ago, on October 29, 1992, Lemrick Nelson Jr. was acquitted of the murder of Yankel Rosenbaum. That event — as well as others that both preceded and followed it — had a significant impact on my life, stirring up a host of personal memories and evoking a chapter in the larger story…
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Opinion Why Pope Francis Must Move This Church From Auschwitz
(JTA) — This week, Pope Francis will be making a pilgrimage to Poland, visiting Auschwitz – the notorious death camp in Poland where 1.1 million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust. Auschwitz is comprised of two camps: Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II, also called Birkenau. Birkenau is the actual “theater of death,” where the vast…
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Opinion Why I Said Kaddish for Churchgoers in Charleston
(JTA) — My father died a few weeks ago. The hardest part of the shiva was when it ended. Friends and family were, by and large, no longer visiting. I was alone in pain and agony. I thought of this reality during my visit to the Emanuel AME Church in this city merely two weeks…
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Opinion Paris, You Aren’t Alone
Jewish children wave French flags as the interior minister vowed to step up security after the kosher grocery terror attack./Getty Images Je suis Charlie, je suis Juif. That’s why I fly to Paris – to let my fellow and sister Jews know they are not alone, that Jews around the world care deeply about the…
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Opinion Why I Had To Protest Nelson Mandela
Since Nelson Mandela’s death on December 5, my protests during his 1990 visit to New York have been characterized by many — including J.J. Goldberg on the Forward’s website — as radical and militant. Let me set the record straight: I consider Mandela to be a universal hero. The suffering he endured in prison for…
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