Ben Harris (JTA)
By Ben Harris (JTA)
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Fast Forward Obama: Israelis Should Soul-Search About Making Peace
President Obama reportedly urged Jewish communal leaders to speak to their friends and colleagues in Israel and to “search your souls” over Israel’s seriousness about making peace. In an hourlong meeting Tuesday with about 50 representatives from the Jewish community’s chief foreign policy umbrella group, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Obama…
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Fast Forward Singer Debbie Friedman Is Hospitalized
Songwriter Debbie Friedman has been hospitalized in Orange County, Calif. Friedman is reportedly sedated and on a respirator, according to an email sent Wednesday from the West Coast office of the Union for Reform Judaism. The email asked that prayers be said on Friedman’s behalf, as well as for her mother, sister and aunt. A…
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Fast Forward RCA Conference To Address ‘Rabba’ and Women’s Leadership
With a high-profile discussion scheduled on women’s leadership and two proposed rules aimed at marginalizing rabbis who deviate leftward on hot-button issues, an upcoming Orthodox rabbinical conference is expected to draw its largest crowd in years. The Rabbinical Council of America’s three-day conference set to begin Sunday in Scarsdale, N.Y., comes just months after the…
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Fast Forward Pro-Israel Groups Rally on College Campuses for Apartheid Week
At universities across the globe, the annual springtime ritual known as Israel Apartheid Week is kicking off this week, and Jewish students and pro-Israel groups have been readying themselves to respond in force. Unlike past years, when intense pro-Palestinian activity in the wake of Israel’s offensives in Gaza and Lebanon caught many Jewish students off…
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Fast Forward Four Years On, Many Gaza Evacuees Are Without Permanent Homes
More than four years after her family was ejected from their home in the Gaza Strip, Karen Sarfaty lives with her husband and four of their children in a small pre-fab house in this small town located about midway between the southern Israeli cities of Ashkelon and Ashdod. Neither she nor her husband have found…
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Fast Forward Gary Tobin, Researcher and Advocate of Communal Inclusion, Dies at 59
There are probably few students of American Jewry equally comfortable arguing for more aggressive efforts to grow Jewish numbers through conversion as they are assailing the hostility towards Israel of reflexively liberal academics. But Gary Tobin, who died late Monday at 59 after a long illness, was just that sort of thinker. Trained as city…
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Fast Forward Britain’s Chief Rabbi Raises His Profile in America
Most of what you need to know about Jonathan Sacks, the chief rabbi of the British commonwealth, is apparent from the story he tells of how his latest book, “The Home We Build Together,” came to be. It begins in the prime minister’s study at 10 Downing St., where Sacks would go “regularly” to study…
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Fast Forward U.S. Officials: Israel Struck Convoy in Sudan
Anonymous U.S. officials told the New York Times that Israeli warplanes attacked a convoy in Sudan believed to be smuggling arms to Gaza in January. The report cited unnamed U.S. officials. Israel has refused to confirm or deny the attack; however, outgoing Israeli Prime Minister told a conference in Herzliya on Thursday that “Israel hits…
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