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Rabbinic Job Market Tries Anxious Souls
After five years of rabbinical school, Benjamin Berger was looking forward to leading the life of a pulpit rabbi: getting to know his congregation, sharing his love of the Torah and leading a community. But when he started searching for jobs in his fifth year at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School, a Modern Orthodox seminary…
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Hebrew Catholics Follow Their Own Church
The traditional Jewish blessings over wine and bread, the Kiddush and the Motzi, echoed through the sanctuary at 10 HaRav Kook Street in Jerusalem. It was a room of striking simplicity — with just one small cross in brown wood. Four Catholic priests wearing white robes and green stoles stood at the altar, as one…
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On the Jersey Waterfront, Jews Return, But Jewish Community Still Struggles
Aside from a few buckets to catch water where the roof leaks, Congregation B’nai Jacob in Jersey City, N.J., looks much as it did 40 years ago, when 900 people would show up for High Holy Day services and the Hebrew school was packed with 175 students. But the Hebrew school has been closed for…
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When the Last Survivor Is Gone
Two years ago, an MBA student whom I mentored wrote her thesis on how major Holocaust organizations were planning to deal with the inevitable — the fact that soon, all too soon, there would be no survivors. Her conclusion was sobering. The leadership of every institution acknowledged the problem and dreaded that moment. What were…
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Leading Combatant in Gay Marriage Fight To Head Southern California Rabbis
When Denise Eger assumes the leadership of this region’s local rabbinic association, she’ll be making history — twice over. On May 11, Eger will become not only the first woman to lead the Board of Rabbis of Southern California — one of the nation’s largest rabbinic boards — but also the board’s first openly gay…
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Government Grant Helps California Synagogues Find Eternal Sunshine of the Holy Kind
In 1897, two New York policemen disrupted a public ceremony marking the Blessing of the Sun and dragged a rabbi down to court for failing to have a permit. More than a century later, on the opposite coast, government officials are not only giving a similar ceremony their blessing — they are also putting money…
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Egypt’s Escalating War on Hezbollah
After months of relative passivity, Egypt effectively declared war in mid-April on Iranian-backed terrorist groups operating in its backyard, executing an unprecedented wave of arrests of alleged terrorists, smugglers and arms-makers linked to Hezbollah and Hamas. In the most dramatic action, Cairo announced April 8 that it had arrested 25 Egyptian, Lebanese, Sudanese and Palestinian…
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When to Let Kids Quit?
Josie wails, “I hate flute! I won’t play Takahashi Twinkle!” She hurls herself onto the couch, swanning and weeping like Sarah Bernhardt. What do you do when you want your kid to do a given afterschool activity — whether it’s chess club, music, sports or religious school — and she doesn’t want to do it?…
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Call of the Wild
On March 7, 22-year-old Jake Berkowitz set out from Anchorage, Alaska, on the 2009 Iditarod Trail Dog Sled Race, with 16 dogs and a steely resolve. Twelve days later, he triumphantly crossed the finish line in Nome. Coming in 31st out of 67 competitors, Berkowitz shattered his 65th placing from his first race last year….
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Yid.Dish: Matzoh Crunch
So we only have a few days left of Pesach… and I happen to be quite happy about this! It’s not that I don’t understand Pesach or why we don’t eat leavened things – I do. I actually think the story of Pesach reminds us, as Jews, of some important lessons. The reminder that I…
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In Bibi’s Crowded Cabinet, Health Ministry Shelved
Rarely has so much political interest been focused on a single piece of furniture. The extra table now standing in the Knesset chamber has come to symbolize Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government, a supersized — and poorly constructed — behemoth. In fact, wags note, the table is more solidly built than the government that will sit…
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