Manny’s, a new business in San Francisco’s Mission District, is part cafe, part bookstore, part political event hall. Owner Manny Yekutiel, a 29-year-old rising star in the world of liberal political organizing, calls it a “civic social gathering space.” It’s hosted incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, San Francisco Mayor London Breed, activists with Black Lives…
The former senior rabbi of a historic Reform synagogue in Baltimore has been expelled by the movement’s rabbinical association two months after being fired by the board for over unspecified allegations of the movement’s ethical code, Rabbi Steven Fink was fired in October after the members of Temple Oheb Shalom, a large, 165-year-old community, voted…
On a chilly January morning in Nazareth, a group of young Americans of color, some swathed in kaffiyehs, performed a traditional Arab folk dance before chanting “Ferguson to Palestine, end the occupation! Ferguson to Palestine, we fight to free our nation!” Captured on a 10-minute video, the protest was entitled “Solidarity Demonstration in Nazareth: Ferguson…
Saturday mornings are busy in Brooklyn’s Sheepshead Bay neighborhood, as residents run errands and grab meals. The Underground Boxing Gym on Avenue X is strangely quiet, though. No one is sparring in the ring, or punching the heavy bags that hang from the ceiling, as they are Sunday through Friday. “We’re not open on Saturday,”…
Florida has an improbable new “farmer-in-chief,” a 40-year-old Miami-raised Jewish lawyer. Nicole “Nikki” Fried, who will become the state’s Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Affairs, won her first political race just as improbably: by picking a fight with the National Rifle Association and its iconic state lobbyist — a 79-year-old grandma who carries a gun…
After a series of highly publicized walkouts on Taglit-Birthright trips this summer, the organization has included a ban on “hijakck(ing) a discussion” in the contract participants are required to sign to be accepted on its free 10-day trips to Israel. A new clause included in the contract appears aimed at preventing a recurrence of such…
Three progressive Jewish organizations have been advising the Women’s March behind the scenes on its well-publicized issues with anti-Semitism and a sometimes-fraught relationship with the Jewish community, the Forward has learned. The National Council of Jewish Women, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice and Bend the Arc: Jewish Action are working with the Women’s March…
Once you’re a rabbi, you’re good for life — unlike a law or medical license, no central professional body can take the title away. And while you can get the title from a Jewish seminary, such as Hebrew Union College (Reform), Yeshiva University (Orthodox) or the Jewish Theological Seminary (Conservative), there are thousands of rabbis…
One of the most powerful and well-compensated Jewish nonprofit jobs in the United States just got passed from father to son. Steve Nasatir has led the Chicago Jewish community for four decades from his office a few blocks from Millennium Park. The Jewish federation he runs gives out more than $200 million each year, and…
A synagogue in Virginia has issued a statement in favor of Conservative clergy presiding at interfaith weddings even though the movement still officially bans the practice. In a Facebook post, the synagogue’s rabbi said that its board had voted to allow its clergy to marry a Jewish person to a non-Jewish person, but only when…
Some retired rabbis just can’t let go. There’s the rabbi who wants to marry the kid he bat mitzvah-ed, or the rabbi who thinks he could give a better Yom Kippur sermon than the next guy. Some may simply feel that the buck should still stop with them, even when they’re no longer officially in…
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