The celebrated changemaker made history as the first woman ordained to the rabbinate at Chicago’s Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation
Rabbi Joe Hample performed last year’s High Holiday services at his West Virginia synagogue in front of an empty sanctuary, posted the recording to YouTube and cobbled together a digital prayerbook so members could follow along at home. In the spring, as his state led the nation in vaccinations and the pandemic appeared to be…
A butcher, comedian and environmentalist walk into a bar. Turns out they’re all the same guy: Harvey Lashinsky. The Borscht Belt bred comedian used his Yiddish influenced sense of humor as a relief from his job at his family’s meat shop in a tiny Catskills resort town. Now, he adds another role to his resume…
This piece first appeared in the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle. Is a congregation still a congregation if it no longer employs a rabbi, is selling its building and isn’t offering High Holiday services? For Marilyn Posner, the answer is a wholehearted “yes.” Beth Israel Synagogue’s longtime rabbi, David Novitsky, no longer helms the bimah at the…
This is an adaptation of Looking Forward, a weekly email from our editor-in-chief sent on Friday afternoons. Sign up here to get the Forward’s free newsletters delivered to your inbox. And click here for a PDF of stories to savor over Shabbat and Sunday that you can download and print. I can’t stop thinking about…
NEW YORK (JTA) — When the school year ended two months ago, Rabbi Bini Krauss allowed himself to breathe a sigh of relief. His Modern Orthodox day school, SAR Academy, had been perhaps the first Jewish school in the country to close due to COVID when the virus hit its New York City neighborhood in…
This piece first appeared in the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle. Craig Dershowitz is an ardent Zionist. He doesn’t eat pork or shellfish, runs a successful nonprofit and plans to move to Israel next month. But for the tattoos that cover his entire body except his face, palms and the bottom of his feet, he is what…
Beanie Feldstein will play Fanny Brice in the upcoming revival of “Funny Girl” on Broadway. But it’s far from given that a Jewish actress gets to play a strong Jewish role. Tracy-Ann Oberman, famous for her work in British TV comedies and soap operas, and who now stars in the hit West End production The…
BERLIN (JTA) — “Jude, Jude, Jude einfach nur ein Wort.” The phrase — “Jew, Jew, Jew is just a word” — comes near the start of the opening rap theme song to the German talk show “Freitagnacht Jews” (“Friday Night Jews”), a state-sponsored program aimed at broadening the German public’s understanding of Jews and questions…
Robin Washington, the Forward’s editor-at-large, shares his thoughts on the largest-ever study of Jews of color and about that time he was mistaken for Rod Carew at his own Twin Cities synagogue. American Jews of color say their racial and ethnic identities shape their Jewishness in important, positive ways, but that they also face bigotry…
(JTA) — After a series of high-profile revelations about sexual misconduct within its ranks, the world’s largest Jewish denomination has initiated three separate independent investigations into how it deals with allegations of abuse. In an unprecedented move, the Reform movement’s seminary, rabbinical association and synagogue network have each hired different expert law firms to investigate…
