Julie Wiener
By Julie Wiener
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News The Intermarriage Debate is Flaring Up (Again), Months After Pew Survey
(JTA) — In the months since the Pew Research Center’s survey of American Jews renewed communal concern about assimilation, the intermarriage debate is flaring up again. Jewish religious and communal institutions had been shifting away from seeing intermarriage as a problem to be combated and toward focusing on engaging the intermarried. But in recent weeks, there…
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Life Dawn Zimmer, Thorn in Chris Christie’s Side
(JTA) — Eight years ago Dawn Zimmer was a stay-at-home mom and freelance photographer. Now, the 45-year-old Democrat, elected the first Jewish mayor of Hoboken, N.J., in 2009, made the front page of The New York Times. Since last week, when she accused Gov. Chris Christie’s lieutenant governor of trying to make Superstorm Sandy recovery funds…
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News Bend the Arc Leader Stosh Cotler Has Radical Streak — and Black Belt
(JTA) — When Stosh Cotler takes over as CEO of Bend the Arc, a Jewish group that fights for immigration reform, workers’ rights and other domestic liberal causes, she will be one of the few women leading a national Jewish group of its size. But Cotler’s gender is not the only thing that sets her…
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News Jewish Day Schools Roll Out ‘Indexed’ Tuition Plans for Financial Aid
(JTA) — Tehiyah Day School in El Cerrito, Calif., had a problem. Like many Jewish day schools throughout North America, Tehiyah has plenty of students from lower-income families and a number from affluent ones. But it couldn’t seem to recruit and retain many middle-class students, even as it devoted increasing amounts to financial aid. Middle-class…
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News Reform Rabbis Announce Head-Shaving Tribute to Superman Sam
(JTA) In March, dozens of rabbis will shave their heads at the Reform movement’s Central Conference of American Rabbis conference in Chicago. But the 8-year-old boy whose struggle with cancer inspired the rabbis’ campaign will not be there to witness their act of solidarity. Samuel Asher Sommer, the son of Rabbis Phyllis and Michael Sommer,…
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News Synagogues Turning to Consultants To Better Understand Communities
(JTA) — Before Sacha Litman shares his data analysis with his synagogue clients, he likes to have the board members and staff guess the contents. Which programs are most expensive and most popular? How many Hebrew school parents would recommend the congregation to a friend? Eighty percent of the time, Litman says, the assumptions of synagogue…
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Israel News New Initiative Promotes Hebrew Literacy Among American Jews
(JTA) — For the first 3 1/2 weeks of the summer, one group of 5-year-olds at Ramah Day Camp in Nyack, N.Y., was “very quiet” as the children went about the typical camp activities, according to Amy Skopp Cooper, the camp’s director. But in the fourth week, the talking started – in Israeli-accented Hebrew. By the…
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Breaking News Brooklyn Jews Worry Over Wave of ‘Knockout’ Attacks
(JTA) — Chava, a student at a Chabad seminary, has lived in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn for six years, but it’s only in the past few days that she started carrying pepper spray in her handbag. Her younger brother gave her the deterrent after news hit of a string of recent attacks against…
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