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Did Neil Gorsuch Turn Religious Freedom Into ‘Sword’ To Impose Beliefs?
WASHINGTON (JTA) – On June 27, 2013, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1oth Circuit, based in Denver, handed down a decision that would make history a year later when it was upheld by the Supreme Court: Closely held corporations have the same religious freedom rights as individuals. The majority decision in the case…
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Her Journey From Hasidic Rabbi To (Happy) Transgender Woman
Abby Stein is almost certainly the only ordained Hasidic rabbi who is also a woman. Stein wasn’t female when ordained, of course. She was a young man, soon to be married to a woman also from the strict Satmar community in which they were both raised. While Stein – then named Yisroel and nicknamed Srully…
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Intermarried Jews Form Their Own Communities — Outside Synagogues
NEW YORK (JTA) — Leading up to their wedding in 2012, Julianne and Jason Kanter hadn’t really discussed how they would incorporate their respective religions into their home. Julianne was raised by Catholic and Presbyterian parents, while Jason grew up culturally Jewish. At first, it was simple to mark their different backgrounds. In December, the…
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In Chicago, The Election Aftermath Is Bringing Groups That Once Squabbled Together
Early last Saturday morning—the Jewish Sabbath—someone smashed the windows of the Chicago Loop Synagogue and drew swastikas on the front of the building. Lee Zoldan, the synagogue’s president, got a phone call with the bad news at 1 a.m. An hour later, she found herself standing with her husband in the middle of Clark Street…
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Is Schumer Unshackled? A Newly Snarky Senator Spearheads Resistance On The Hill
When Betsy DeVos got confirmed as education secretary, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer had to find another Trump nomination to attack in his newfound role as leader of his party’s opposition to President Donald Trump. Andy Puzder, the president’s pick for labor secretary, quickly emerged as Schumer’s best option. He proceeded to call on Trump…
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REPORT: Pro-Israel Effort Is Failing — Can Harsh Targeting of BDS ‘Instigators’ Save It?
In a new report circulating privately in Jewish policy circles this month, two leading pro-Israel groups charge that Jewish communal efforts against the BDS movement have largely failed. The report, issued by the Anti-Defamation League and the Israel-based Reut Institute, claims that Jewish groups’s investments in fighting what they call “the assault on Israel’s legitimacy”…
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Valentine Compares Burning Love To Jews In Oven At Central Michigan University
Valentine’s Day took an ugly turn at the College Republicans’s holiday party at Central Michigan University, when a card featuring Adolf Hitler and bearing the words “my love 4 u burns like 6,000 Jews,” mysteriously emerged. Members gave Valentine’s Day bags to each other during the February 8 party, and one bag contained an anti-Semitic…
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It’s Chabad vs. Lithuanian Jews in Fight Over Holocaust Funds
Holocaust restitution money is supposed to heal wounds. But the Lithuanian government’s payment of $40 million to the country’s small Jewish community has reopened a decades-long dispute between Lithuania’s Jewish leadership and a Chabad rabbi from Boston. Arguments over the money have swelled into a debate about who better represents Lithuanian Jewry — a Hasidic…
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The First Voices To Emerge from the Holocaust: David Boder’s Nightmarish Journey, Rediscovered
It was a mysterious, mislabeled canister that sat for 50 years, undisturbed, in the University of Akron’s archives. But its recent discovery has provided a valuable addition to a precious trove of recordings: the earliest preserved voices of survivors of the Nazi concentration camps, just months after their liberation. The University of Akron’s discovery, announced…
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Has Ultra-Orthodox Group Agudath Israel Changed Its Tune On Sex Abuse Lawsuits?
There’s a bombshell deep in this week’s New York Jewish Week story about a conference on sex abuse in the Jewish community: The powerful Orthodox umbrella group Agudath Israel of America is backing off its opposition to extending the statute of limitations for bringing claims against abusers. For nearly a decade, advocates for sex abuse…
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Trump Attacks Richard Blumenthal On Military Record After Gorsuch Criticism
President Donald Trump laced into Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal over his military service record, after the lawmaker met with Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch and said Gorsuch had criticized the president’s recent statements about judges as “demoralizing” and “disheartening.” Sen.Richard Blumenthal, who never fought in Vietnam when he said for years he had (major lie),now…
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