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Sweeping Generational Change Looms as Leaders of Jewish Groups Near Retirement
The Anti-Defamation League saw its legendary leader, Abraham Foxman, step down after 28 years at the helm and replaced by 44-year-old outsider Jonathan Greenblatt. UJA-Federation of New York’s longtime CEO, John Ruskay, left last June. His successor, Eric Goldstein, came from the private sector. Within the past few years, a new top leader also took…
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Reform Leader Vows To Tighten Discipline After Rabbi Eric Siroka Flap
The leader of America’s largest rabbinical organization vowed to improve his group’s disciplinary process following a Forward investigation that highlighted failures to alert a Jewish community of alleged sexual misconduct by a Reform rabbi. In a series of private emails and Facebook posts to rabbis, obtained by the Forward, Rabbi Steve Fox said that the…
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Why Tajikistan’s Last Jews Are Staying Put Despite Waves of Change
The secret synagogue of Tajikistan is not hard to find once you know where to look. Like much in Dushanbe, Tajikistan’s small and humdrum capital, the building is on a street whose name no one uses and where few strangers venture. From the outside it could be just another upscale house with a lush courtyard,…
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Defying Stereotypes, Jewish Life in the South Is Flourishing
When Courtney Ferriter arrived six years ago in the predominantly Protestant community of Auburn, Alabama, she needed a place where she felt like she belonged. “You feel like you’re a bit of an outsider, so the natural inclination is, you want to go find your people,” Ferriter said. Ferriter, a graduate student at Auburn University,…
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Presidential Candidates Head to Israel — But Who Foots the Bill?
Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson visited Israel on a tour organized by a for-profit company that has since ceased most of its activity. Ted Cruz took the trip on the dime of a hawkish advocacy group with neoconservative ties. Rand Paul had an anti-gay Christian group pay his way to Jerusalem. And Carly Fiorina, a…
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Forward 50 2015 Eli Broad
Writing for the Los Angeles Times in 2014, Eli Broad and Richard Riordan wrote that “citizens need leaders who sketch a vision of what is possible and rally them to the cause.” They were writing about their funding collaboration for Los Angeles’s long-planned Walt Disney Concert Hall, but the philosophy could easily be used to…
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Forward 50 2015 Ann Lewis
Entering her third Clinton political campaign, Ann Lewis naturally slipped into the position of Hillary Clinton’s point person to the Jewish community, even without an official title. A former adviser to President Clinton, Lewis worked closely on Hillary Clinton’s 2008 unsuccessful presidential campaign and is now back again, leading the candidate’s Jewish outreach efforts. Lewis,…
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Forward 50 2015 Jill Soloway
Jill Soloway, 50, is no new- comer to the entertainment industry. From 2002 to 2005 the Chicago-born director and screenwriter wrote and later co-executive produced the acclaimed HBO series “Six Feet Under.” She wrote and directed the 2013 movie “Afternoon Delight,” about an unhappy mother who strikes up an unlikely friendship with a 19-year-old sex…
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Forward 50 2015 Gary Cohen
Gary Cohen, 59, has spent his entire career trying to reduce pollution. His Virginia-based not-for-profit, Health Care Without Harm, has been at the forefront of the push to eliminate the use of mercury in medical instruments worldwide and to dramatically reduce the number of medical waste incinerators in America, a leading source of pollution linked…
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Forward 50 2015 Bethany Mandel
What do you do when you discover that your rabbi filmed you naked in the mikveh as you were converting to Judaism? You pull out your cell phone at 2 a.m., type up “a bill of rights for Jewish converts” and watch as your blog post goes viral by morning. At least, that’s how you…
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Forward 50 2015 Emma Sulkowicz
When Columbia University dismissed her sexual assault complaint, Emma Sulkowicz came back to campus carrying a mattress like the one on which she said she was raped by a fellow student — and never left it behind. The image of a young woman carrying her mattress quickly became the new symbol of the national movement…
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