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Orthodox Rabbis Eye Liberal Seminary
The main union of Modern Orthodox rabbis in America is preparing to vote on whether to admit graduates from an upstart Manhattan seminary. Most of the 1,000 members of the Rabbinical Council of America are graduates of Modern Orthodoxy’s flagship institution, Yeshiva University. But the RCA’s executive committee is scheduled to vote in June on…
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University Under Fire for Holiday Policy
TORONTO — A York University professor has lodged a complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Commission, alleging that the school discriminates against non-Jewish students because it cancels classes for three days annually during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. David Noble, a Jewish professor at York, filed the human rights complaint with the quasi-judicial commission after…
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Divided and Conquered, Iraq Descends Into Civil War
In 2003, President Bush told Americans that we had to invade Iraq because Saddam Hussein was actively pursuing nuclear weapons and stockpiling chemical and biological ones. We now know that those threats did not exist. Three deadly years later, Bush is again misleading the American public about the threat emanating from Iraq. This time, however,…
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Is There Chametz in Your Compact?
When clearing their homes of unleavened products before Passover, most people remember to rid the cupboards of rye bread and to empty the leftover challah from the freezers. Something that is forgotten by many, however, is the checking of makeup for traces of chametz. But it shouldn’t be. Though it may come as a surprise…
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U.S. Officials Are Mulling Iran Strikes, Experts Say
Key players in the Bush administration think a military confrontation with Iran is an unavoidable, leading to stepped up military planning for such a prospect, according to several experts and recently departed senior government officials. Some of these observers stressed that military strikes against Iran are not imminent and speculated that the escalated war chatter…
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A Mexican Matzo Plant Presses On
For Mexico City’s David and Hershl Fiiller, making matzo is a family tradition with trans-Atlantic roots. The brothers, children of Polish immigrants who arrived in the 1920s, grew up helping their parents in the bakery adjoining their small downtown abode. Today the site is home to the Fiiller bread factory, a 4,000-square-foot facility with 25…
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Novelist Sharpens His Knife For Those Who Eat Animals
Jonathan Safran Foer, author of the bestselling novel “Everything is Illuminated,” this week released a video in which he argues that the slaughtering practices employed by modern factory farms are out of step with the spirit of the kosher laws. The film ultimately calls upon viewers to consider vegetarianism. The video, which features interviews with…
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Understanding the Exodus Personally: The Kibbutz Haggadah
On Passover, Jews are told to read the Haggadah (literally “the telling”) as if one personally had been a slave in Egypt and then redeemed. By individualizing the text, each person confronts the narrative in new ways, in terms of his or her own life and times. The result has been a multiplicity of Haggadot…
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A Kahane Disciple Wins Big Vote in Israeli Lubavitch Stronghold
KFAR CHABAD, Israel — Bucking the advice of their rabbis, about 30% of voters in Israel’s main Chabad-Lubavitch stronghold cast their ballots for a candidate who advocated the mass expulsion of Arabs, branded Israeli leaders traitors and called for the execution of some liberals. Baruch Marzel, running under the banner of the National Jewish Front,…
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For the Wise and Otherwise
If, as the Haggadah tells us, there are four types of children — wise, wicked, simple and oblivious — then there are two types of Passover children’s books. There are simple books, which give a straight rendition of the Passover story. These usually revolve around a family with an inquisitive child who does not know…
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‘Dear Judge’: Religion-tinged Letters Praise Good Deeds of Felon Lobbyist
When disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff showed up for court in a black fedora, critics attacked him for hiding behind his Orthodox Judaism. In the end, however, religion may have proved to be his best defense. Abramoff, who pleaded guilty recently to felony charges in Washington and in Florida, received the lightest sentence possible in the…
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