If you’re sitting in the front row of a synagogue holding in-person services this year on the High Holidays, make sure there is plenty of distance — or, even better, a piece of plexiglass— between you and the shofar blower. That’s one of the things the hundreds of rabbis learned on a Sep. 1 call…
No one knows better than Portland, Ore.’s Jewish community that their state has a history of racist hate — indeed, that it was founded by white supremacists. As the state grew, it evolved into a place of extremes on both left and right. Now, those groups are confronting each other directly, on a daily basis,…
(JTA) — Bradley Fields once performed a memorable magic show for the kids at his synagogue in which he levitated the rabbi’s school-aged daughter in the sanctuary. The audience was spellbound. “Everyone was in awe,” said Shmuel Herzfeld, the rabbi at Ohev Sholom in Washington, D.C., where Fields was a regular at the daily prayer…
Hundreds of Israelis and Israeli-Americans paraded by car, waving flags and honking horns, to show their support for President Donald Trump. Close to 2,000 people participated in the pro-Trump rally on Aug. 30 in Los Angeles. The rally, which started at Taft High School in Woodland Hills and ended at Jerry’s Famous Deli in Studio…
There are still plenty of critics of the historic deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, but the one place you won’t find many of them is in the UAE. People here have by and large embraced the bilateral “Abraham Accord,” which was signed Aug. 13 and consummated, symbolically at least, on Aug. 31,…
Only about a quarter of Jewish students surveyed found their campuses to be welcoming of religious diversity, according to The Interfaith Diversity Experiences and Attitudes Longitudinal Survey, a small study published last week by a nonprofit that promotes interfaith cooperation on campus. On the other hand, more than 80% of Jewish students said they felt…
“Fuck the Jew, kill the cop.” That’s what Meir HaLevi Weinstein suggested Los Angeles protesters were shouting on Sunday. They were really chanting, “Prosecute killer cops” — a common protest chant. Weinstein — self-proclaimed leader of the North America wing of the Jewish Defense League, a militant organization that has been designated a hate group…
An American nursing home worker might have inadvertently exposed a resident to the virus, and that person has died. Now the worker — an Orthodox Jew — has questions, for the sake of his soul. Someone has written on his behalf to a rabbi in Jerusalem: “The man is broken and shattered,” the letter reads….
I recently purchased at auction an important document consisting of an original draft order to expedite Nazi Germany’s slave labor program, with editing changes in Adolf Hitler’s handwriting. The document clearly demonstrates Hitler’s personal interest and involvement in this murderous program, an important aspect of the Holocaust, and presumably other war crimes as well. It…
Shorter services, held outside. Streamed services. Social distancing. In the era of the coronavirus, congregations across Jewish denominations have been forced to modify cherished High Holiday rituals in order to mitigate the risk posed by singing. It was a choir rehearsal in Skagit County, WA., which led to the infection of 53 members, that alerted…
“Activism in the Five Boroughs” The Forward’s newest collaboration with Urban Archive, the city’s award winning digital mapping platform for storytelling, hits its activist stride next week with this new series focused on social justice. Kicking off from 10/19 – 10/28, the history series, was inspired by calls for meaningful change over the past few…
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