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Kosher Meat Giant Kicks Off P.R. Blitz
The operator of the country’s largest kosher slaughterhouse appears to be gearing up for a major public relations blitz after being battered by criticism of its labor practices and calls for a boycott of its products. Agriprocessors, which has come under renewed fire in the wake of a federal raid on its Postville, Iowa, plant,…
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Israeli Art Critic Wins Legal Battles
Israeli scholar Gannit Ankori has been an advocate of Palestinian art and culture, but it has not protected her from criticism by advocates for the Palestinian cause. During the past year, Ankori, chair of the art history department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has been the subject of critical reviews in two prominent art…
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Rabbi Expelled for Misconduct
A Buffalo, N.Y., rabbi with a history of alleged sexual misconduct has been kicked out of the international union of Conservative rabbis. The Rabbinical Assembly expelled Rabbi Arthur Charles Shalman on June 4, four and a half months after he resigned from his position at Temple Shaarey Zedek outside Buffalo, amid allegations of an inappropriate…
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New Chief Rabbi Appointed in France
Gilles Bernheim, the rabbi of Paris’s largest synagogue, defeated incumbent Joseph Sitruk to become France’s new chief rabbi in a hotly contested election decided June 22. Bernheim, a 56-year-old philosopher and proponent of a more modern Orthodoxy, will take over from Sitruk, 63, a popular figure who held the position since 1987. Bernheim garnered a…
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Fixing the Flying Toilet
NEWS ITEM: After the toilet on the orbiting space station broke down, the space shuttle Discovery delivered an unusual payload to the stressed astronauts: a pump to fix the faulty potty. The astronauts, with great distaste, By hand were pumping liquid waste Because their toilet pump was broke — In outer space, this is no…
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Orthodox ‘American Idol’ Scores a Hit With Observant Audiences
Ramat Gan, Israel — You could tell that filming in the studio of Israel’s newest reality show was about to begin: The keyboard player who provides the background music started shuckling, piously swaying back and forth. The program being recorded in a small Ramat Gan studio last month followed the format of such reality shows…
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Preschool Plan Pits Antiquities Museum Against Hasidim in Ritzy L.A. Enclave
Los Angeles — A brewing land-use dispute that involves a Southern California Chabad-Lubavitch branch, a powerful Los Angeles art museum and a host of outraged neighbors is stoking tensions between the Hasidic Orthodox sect and residents of one of this city’s wealthiest enclaves. The fracas began when a Chabad group in Pacific Palisades — a…
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The Counterfeit Saga(s): What Really Happened at Sachsenhausen?
‘The Counterfeiters” purports to tell the story of how Jews at Sachsenhausen concentration camp produced near-perfect forgeries of the British pound for the Nazis. But be forewarned: Austrian director Stefan Ruzowitsky’s 2008 Academy Award winner for best foreign film lacks a great deal of the drama inherent in the real-life story. That’s the word from…
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A Kosher Dilemma
I’m having a crisis of conscience about kashrut. (For some reason I want to write “krisis of konscience about kashrut,” because it sounds vaguely like a hardcore band that would play headbanging songs about kale. But I suppose fans would want to call them by their initials, and that would really not be kool.) Here’s…
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Yid.Dish: Chocolate Buttermilk Cake
Yesterday, I had brunch at my friend’s apartment. It was a steamy Sunday morning – the kind where it could rain any second and your hair (or at least my hair) becomes simultaneously flat, frizzy, and full of weirdly-placed curls. French toast and eggs seemed too heavy for such a morning. But luckily, at some…
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Religious Right Gears Up To Push Political Choices From the Pulpit
As the presidential candidates prepare to compete for religious voters this November, some preachers on the Christian right are vowing to test longstanding tax rules that inhibit politicking from the pulpit. The Alliance Defense Fund — a legal outfit launched by James Dobson and other prominent conservatives in the mid-1990s — has recruited 50 pastors…
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