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An Awakened Soul
Is spiritual development really as important as intellectual development? Today, one often finds in Jewish culture a mutual suspicion between those who value intellectual education (and its likely material consequences) and the “spiritual” types who like to chant, meditate and “explore their feelings.” On the one side, many well-schooled Jewish adults regard today’s would-be mystics…
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Ukrainians Want Jews Probed on War Crimes
TORONTO — For years, the Ukrainian-Canadian community has been on the defensive over the Jewish community’s allegations that Nazi war criminals — many of them of Ukrainian origin — were living in Canada. Now, a Ukrainian-Canadian organization has turned the tables by accusing several elderly Jews of having been involved in Soviet war crimes. The…
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Synagogue Renewal Efforts Earn Mixed Results
A typical Friday night at Temple Micah, a Reform congregation in Washington, D.C., features the usual combination of prayer, conversation and pastry, but what is surprising is the order in which they come. While most congregations save the mingling until after services, in recent years the synagogue has made a special point of serving wine…
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For Liberals, Anger Trumps Abortion Issue In Senate Race
As Pennsylvania gears up for a bruising Senate race in 2006, Democratic activists are finding that the usual politics of abortion rights have been upended. Both the incumbent senator, Rick Santorum, a Republican, and his likely Democratic challenger, State Treasurer Robert Casey Jr., are devout Catholics who oppose abortion. Many liberal activists and political donors…
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Wrestling ‘Kabbalah’ From Madonna, Britney
The likes of Madonna, Demi Moore and Britney Spears have brought the ancient Jewish mystical practice and teachings of Kabbalah into mainstream pop culture. The ladies are photographed wearing superstitious red-string bracelets; they drink specially blessed water and, most controversially, they have raised the profile of the Kabbalah Centre. The center, which is not tied…
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Bush Administration Vows To Boycott Hamas Militants Elected in Territories
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration “will neither recognize nor engage with” members of Hamas or Hezbollah who are elected to office unless the two militant groups disarm, a top American diplomat told the Forward. David Satterfield, the second-ranking official at the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, said that the Bush administration is not…
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School Offers New Degree in Spirituality
Rabbi Yakov Travis has a message for spiritual seekers: Come down from that mountaintop, move to Cleveland and go back to school. Travis, a professor at Cleveland’s Laura and Alvin Siegal College of Judaic Studies, has created America’s first nondenominational master’s degree program in spirituality. “This is about [the students’] own spiritual journey,” said Travis,…
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Chief Rabbinate Under Cloud As Police Question a 2nd Rabbi
JERUSALEM — In a devastating blow to the credibility of Israel’s state rabbinic establishment, the nation’s Sephardic chief rabbi, Shlomo Amar, was interrogated this week by the police on suspicion of complicity in the abduction and beating of a 17-year-old youth who was dating his daughter. Amar is not known to be suspected of direct…
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Conference Focuses on Women’s Needs
Hundreds of women hoping to get in touch with their spiritual side are heading to California for a first-of-its-kind conference. Chochmat HaLev, a center for Jewish spirituality located in Berkeley, Calif., is organizing a Jewish Women’s Conference, slated for July in San Francisco. The one-day event is aimed at meeting the needs of women, who…
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Suit Highlights Failures on Art Restitution
As part of a renewed push to reclaim art seized by the Nazis, an elderly Holocaust survivor has filed suit against the Spanish government to regain a Camille Pissarro painting taken from his grandmother. Claude Cassirer, 84, filed suit Tuesday in a Los Angeles court, demanding the return of the painting — “Rue Saint-Honoré, après-midi,…
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In Praise of Impurity
A priestly revulsion against the body in general and bodily fluids in particular seems to lie behind many of the laws in Leviticus. This week’s portion, for example, records laws for controlling defilement caused by corpses, “an eruption or discharge” and “an emission of semen.” There are also prohibitions concerning a man who has “a…
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