Rebecca Spence
By Rebecca Spence
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News Summer Storms Kill Two N.J. Teens, Michigan Camp Director
HACKENSACK, N.J. — The two teenagers were enjoying the long days of summer last Saturday, playing a casual, early-evening game of soccer with friends. But when a thunderstorm touched down July 22 on the elementary school field in Montvale, N.J., where Steven Fagan, 18, and Lee Weisbrod, 19, were playing soccer, a bolt of lightning…
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News Rabbi Challenges Right to Anonymity on Internet
The latest chapter in an ongoing saga pitting an Orthodox rabbi from Monsey, N.Y., against female former congregants who have accused him of sexual harassment is raising broad legal questions about the right of free speech in cyberspace. Rabbi Mordecai Tendler, who was accused of sexually propositioning women who came to him seeking spiritual guidance,…
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News GOP Chief, Abramoff Linked In New Government Report
As the chairman of the Republican National Committee attempts to distance himself and his party from the Jack Abramoff corruption scandal, a new government report suggests that the GOP leader used his previous White House post to aid the disgraced lobbyist. Since allegations first surfaced in 2004 that Abramoff had bilked Indian tribes out of…
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News Rabbi and Former Nun Settle Down in Miami
To the two protagonists, it is the heartwarming story of how a small-town Conservative rabbi and a flamenco dancer-turned-Russian Orthodox nun fell in love and wound up living together in a condo in Miami. The rabbi’s heartbroken wife and his irate former congregants, however, see a sordid tale of betrayal and abandonment. Whichever description one…
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News Y.U. Prez ‘Outraged’ Over Israel Snub
Yeshiva University President Richard Joel is slamming the Israeli education ministry for refusing to recognize bachelor’s degrees from the school more than a year after a government vow to reverse the policy. “Last year I expressed patience. This year I’m expressing outrage,” said Joel, who voiced his objections at a crowded June 26 meeting of…
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News Report: Pol Mishandled ‘March of the Living’ Funds
Israel’s state comptroller has opened an investigation into charges that the country’s minister of finance, Avraham Hirchson, mishandled the funding of an iconic Holocaust education project, the March of the Living, in possible violation of both nonprofit laws and campaign finance laws. The charges are contained in a bruising cover story published June 16 in…
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News Orthodox Union Pressing Israeli P.M To Reach Out
As Israeli Prime Minster Ehud Olmert wages a diplomatic campaign to shore up international support for his proposed “realignment” plan, leaders of the Orthodox Union in the United States are warning that he could face a storm of protest if he fails to address their concerns. In an op-ed published last week in the Israeli…
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News Think Tank Under Fire Over Lack Of Women
A prestigious Israeli institute was scrambling this week to find female participants for a high-powered parley on the future of the Jewish people after being heavily criticized for failing to include any women. In recent days the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute, a Jerusalem-based policy consortium that boasts former American diplomat Dennis Ross as its…
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