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12 new letters: Revamped aleph bet aims to recognize women and non-binary people
As part of her capstone project at her Tel Aviv-area college, graphic artist Michal Shomer revamped the Hebrew alphabet — adding a dozen new letters to make the 3,000-year-old language more inclusive of both women and non-binary people. She made what she calls multi-gender Hebrew free to anyone in the past year, and 10,000 have…
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For synagogues serving deaf congregants, the shofar service means getting creative
On a typical Rosh Hashanah at Temple Beth Solomon of the Deaf in Los Angeles, congregants gather around the bimah and place their hands on the wooden podium to feel the vibrations that accompany blasts of the shofar. This year, as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has meant many synagogues are once more planning remote or…
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Biden recommits to battling antisemitism in Rosh Hashanah call with rabbis
President Joe Biden reiterated his commitment to combating antisemitism during an High Holiday Zoom call with rabbis and Jewish leaders on Thursday afternoon, an annual presidential ritual. Biden promised to confront “the scourge of antisemitism that remains all too present today. We have to, and will, condemn this prejudice at every turn alongside other forms…
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Who gets to teach what about Israel? A UNC course ignites the debate
“A lot of Jewish people here conflate anti-Zionism with antisemitism and they associate criticism of Israel, or suggestions of a binational state, with hatred of Jewish people,” said Zoe Beyer, a Jewish student leader
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Ezra Furman has sung about God in her indie rock. Now she’s going to rabbinical school.
(JTA) — “How would I describe myself?” Ezra Furman said wryly, tearing a corner off of her slice of pizza in a shop in Somerville, Mass. “I try to avoid it.” There’s certainly a lot to cover. The 34-year-old musician is an acclaimed indie rocker, an observant Jew, a transgender woman, a mother, and —…
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More than 1,000 ‘Rabbis for Repro’ work for abortion rights. Their fight just got tougher.
Scrolling through Twitter in her pajamas Tuesday night, Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg learned that the Supreme Court would allow a strict anti-abortion law to take effect in Texas. “Honestly, I was shocked, though I know I shouldn’t have been,” said Ruttenberg, who last year launched Rabbis for Repro, a group of Jewish clergy who work to…
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He was sentenced to life in prison. Rescue dogs — and a rabbi — helped him find redemption.
VACAVILLE, Calif. (JTA) – Soon after Jon Grobman was released from prison, where he had once thought he would die, he headed back inside voluntarily — this time with canine sidekicks. Grobman was returning as the newest hire of a nonprofit group, Paws for Life K9 Rescue, that had been instrumental in his own long…
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Potsdam’s stylish new synagogue is the German city’s first since WWII
(JTA) — The city of Potsdam, Germany, has its first new synagogue since the Holocaust — and it’s quite a looker. The synagogue is part of the newly inaugurated European Center for Jewish Learning at the University of Potsdam, which will also be the umbrella for the school’s School of Jewish Theology founded in 2013…
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GOP mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa frustrated at lack of Jewish support
For four years in a row, in the mid-1990s, New York mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa was the sour garlic pickle-eating champion of the world and almost earned a silver in a matzah ball-eating contest — before he was disqualified for tampering with them. Others may know Sliwa better as a radio personality and the founder…
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Synagogues scramble as Delta throws a wrench into High Holiday planning
Earlier this summer, Rabbi Joe Hample began writing a High Holiday sermon he can no longer deliver. The theme was “thank God the pandemic is receding,’” said Hample, who leads Tree of Life in Morgantown, West Virginia. “And now the pandemic is bouncing back so I have to change the sermon. I’m torn between panic…
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These New Yorkers were annoyed by anti-vaccine Holocaust comparisons. So they wrote a song.
(JTA) — It was a quiet Shabbat afternoon when the frustration that had been building up inside Michal Schick spilled out in a song. For months, Schick had been keeping a tally in her head — and sometimes on Twitter, where the New York City screenwriter is active — of pandemic-related Holocaust comparisons that, to her…
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