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Equity and inclusion officer resigns over a statement condemning antisemitism
It started with a seemingly innocuous statement. Jews have “the right to life, safety and freedom from scapegoating and fear,” declared April Powers, a Black Jewish woman who posted the release in June on website and social channels of an organization of children’s book authors where she headed diversity and inclusion initiatives. It did not…
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Were southern Jews in the civil rights era ‘inside agitators?’
T. K. Thorne’s book, “Behind the Magic Curtain: Secrets, Spies, and Unsung White Allies of Birmingham’s Civil Rights Days,” challenges the accepted view that all Southern Jews stayed aloof from the 1960’s Civil Rights Movement. In her introduction, Thorne quotes Larry Brooks, editor and publisher of Southern Jewish Life magazine, who observed in 2015 that,…
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From Ground Zero to Surfside, a bond between tragedies emerges
With a residential tower in Surfside, Fla., reduced to a smoking heap of debris several stories high, and families near the site holding onto slim hopes of their loved ones’ rescue, Rabbi Joseph Potasnik found himself revisiting the trauma of September 11, 2001, when he was the Jewish chaplain for the New York City Fire…
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Meet the beloved ‘Bitcoin Rabbi’ of Twitter
(JTA) — Many of Twitter’s cryptocurrency zealots are often notorious trolls, but one particular thought leader stands out from the rest. He happens to be a rabbi. “Twitter people either use it to scream at each other and not be nice, which I don’t like,” says micro-influencer Rabbi Michael Caras, also known as @thebitcoinrabbi. ”I…
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This rabbi was addicted to opioids. Now he’s using his experience to help his congregants.
(JTA) — For Rabbi Michael Perice, the hardest thing about counseling congregants who have family members dealing with addiction had been holding back his own experience with substance abuse. “I really wanted to let people know in these conversations that I understand. And I couldn’t do that,” Perice said. Perice, the spiritual leader at Temple Sinai…
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After decades of resistance, LGBTQ marriage is Conservative practice. Is Modern Orthodoxy next?
In February 2021, Toronto’s largest Conservative synagogue, Beth Tzedec, announced that they would perform LGBTQ marriages. They were one of the last major North American Conservative synagogues to do so: Beth Tzedec’s announcement came nearly a decade after the Rabbinical Assembly, the international association of Conservative rabbis, first formally approved clergy performing LGBTQ marriage. For…
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A Jewish comedian tees off — and now the feds are after him
It’s not a laughing matter. Jake Adams’ plan was to draw a lot of attention to himself, help his stand-up comedy career and have a good time to boot. But it ended up going terribly wrong and now he is facing federal charges, and the ensuing bad publicity has cost him a social media job…
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From Torah heists to hurricane-proof scrolls, synagogues encounter bumps on way to Torah ownership
For the past nine years, Rabbi Mitchell Nesenoff has been asking synagogues if they would donate one of their Torahs to him for use in his congregation, Temple Adat Yisrael in Lagos, Nigeria. None agreed. “When you represent a synagogue in Nigeria, people don’t believe you,” he said. “Nigeria has a terrible reputation because of…
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Reuven Bulka, ‘Canada’s rabbi’ and champion of kindness, dies at 77
Even as he lay in bed in the final days of his life, Rabbi Reuven Bulka maintained his sense of humor. When a nurse asked if she could take his blood pressure, he responded, “As long as you give it back.” Rabbi Bulka, age 77, died Sunday in New York after a six-month battle with…
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Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava is a source of pride for local Jews under haunting circumstances
SURFSIDE, Fla. (JTA) — Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava speaks fluent English and what she calls passable Spanish, but some of her constituents use a Yiddish word to describe her. “She’s heimishe,” said Jacob Solomon, the longtime president of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation, using the Yiddish word for homey and reassuring. “And she’s…
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War in Tigray threatens livelihood of tahini suppliers
First, conflict diamonds. Now, conflict tahini? Tahini, that creamy, silky condiment made of toasted and ground sesame seeds, is at the center of a vicious civil war in Ethiopia’s Tigray province. The war, and the famine conditions that now affect close to a million people there, may be upending the cultivation of what has become…
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