Rebecca Spence
By Rebecca Spence
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News Prayer Shawls, Flip-Flops Mingle at ‘Shul on the Beach’
Los Angeles – While most Los Angeles Jews gathered for the annual Kol Nidre service in synagogues far removed from any hint of the city’s crime-addled underbelly, a tiny swath of Angelenos could be found praying for absolution in the very place where sins abound. Situated on the Venice Beach boardwalk — known since the…
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News Florida Shines in Hillel Campus Survey
A new report is offering some unexpected insights into the changing patterns of Jewish life on campus. The findings, released in recent weeks by Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, give a bird’s eye view of the 60 schools with the largest estimated undergraduate Jewish populations. The state of Florida tops the list, with…
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News Assuming Mantle, New Chancellor Proclaims Movement’s Centrality
This week, Arnold Eisen assumed the chancellor’s mantle at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, the Conservative movement’s flagship seminary in New York. The school’s seventh chancellor, Eisen replaced Ismar Schorsch, who helmed the institution for 20 years. On the eve of his inauguration, the Forward’s Rebecca Spence sat down with him for a wide-ranging…
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Culture Trembling Toward Icon Status
During the upcoming 10 days reserved on the Jewish calendar for reflection, Amos Lassen, an observant Jew living in the heart of the Bible Belt, will host an event at his Little Rock, Ark., synagogue that might inject a little shock into the Days of Awe. Lassen will be giving the Arkansas capital its first…
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News Families Mourn as School Abruptly Closes
As the Conservative movement is seeking to reenergize its ranks, a swath of its members is mourning the sudden loss of the New York City area’s only Conservative Jewish high school. Less than two weeks before the Metropolitan Schechter High School in Teaneck, N.J., was set to begin the academic year, the board announced to…
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News Lawsuits Reopen Internal Feuding at WJC
New leadership was supposed to calm the long-running feuds at the World Jewish Congress, but the past is being brought forward again by a set of lawsuits filed this week against a former top official at the organization. The WJC and its former president, Edgar Bronfman, filed separate civil suits in New York State Supreme…
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News Amid Jewish Cultural Renaissance, Leading Communal Arts Booster Is Retooling Identity
In the wake of seismic shifts in the Jewish cultural landscape, one of the longtime central addresses for Jewish culture is waging a struggle to remake itself. According to a strategic plan poised to be passed by its board of directors this week, the newly renamed Foundation for Jewish Culture is setting out to “become…
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News Lauder Struggles To Gain Traction at WJC
With his personal wealth estimated at close to $3 billion, it may be safe to assume that cosmetics heir Ronald Lauder is unaccustomed to hearing the word “no.” But when Lauder, the newly elected president of the World Jewish Congress, tapped a highly respected Jewish professional to help him right what is by most accounts…
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