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Avi Weiss Defends ‘Open Orthodoxy’ as Agudah Rabbis Declare War
A group of leading ultra-Orthodox rabbis issued a proclamation November 2 asserting that the so-called Open Orthodox movement is not legitimately Orthodox and that rabbis ordained in its seminaries are not rabbis. The proclamation by the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of America, the ultra-Orthodox rabbis who guide the Agudath Israel of America, is the latest salvo…
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How Rabbi Eric Siroka Made Me Lose My Jewish Identity
This woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, met Rabbi Eric Siroka at the Reform synagogue Or Chadash, in Flemington, New Jersey, in 2000. She was 17 at the time and was looking for someone to mentor her through a Reform youth fellowship program. Siroka became her teacher, leading her in weekly evening study sessions when…
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Israel Cat Fight Erupts as Minister Pushes to Deport Strays
Claws were out on Monday after an Israeli cabinet minister proposed sending stray dogs and cats to another country as an alternative to government-funded efforts to sterilize them. “Use the budget to transfer stray dogs and/or cats of one gender (all the males or all the females) to a foreign nation that will agree to…
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When Reform Leaders Downplay Charges of Rabbis Behaving Badly
Rabbi Eric Siroka was quietly expelled from the nation’s leading association for Reform rabbis, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, this past spring. At the time, the CCAR said only that Siroka had been expelled for refusing to comply with an ethics investigation. By then, Siroka, a married father with two children, had moved to…
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Blind Supreme Court Justice To Run NYC Marathon
The 2015 New York City Marathon was be the 19th that Michigan Supreme Court Justice Richard Bernstein runs in his lifetime. Bernstein loves running, but while for most people it is a way to free the mind, for him, it demands very intense and constant concentration. He was born blind. “The way that it works…
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In Rabin Square, Few Lessons From the Murder of a General Turned Peacemaker
As memorial ceremonies for slain Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin kicked off in Israel, the Tel Aviv square named in his honor was empty. A tropical rainstorm had chased away visitors. Just a few people walked through a photo exhibit at the plaza that marked 20 years since Rabin was assassinated by right-wing extremist Yigal Amir…
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Will Jerusalem Violence Kill Egalitarian Prayer Plan for Western Wall?
The proposed egalitarian prayer space at the Western Wall, which was meant to serve non-Orthodox Jews worldwide, looks like the latest casualty of the terror wave hitting Israel. Progress on the initiative – supported both by the Israeli government and Jewish organizations – had been slow in coming, even before tensions over Jerusalem’s holy sites…
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Why Ben Carson’s Seventh Day Adventist Faith Matters
(JTA) — When Joe Lieberman became the first observant Jew with a reasonable chance at being president – after Al Gore named him his vice presidential running mate in 2000 – he faced a host of questions about how his Sabbath observance might impact his presidential duties. Now that Ben Carson, a Seventh Day Adventist,…
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Why Does Ben Carson Keep Talking About the Nazis?
Ben Carson, the flavor du jour in Republican politics, may be challenging Donald Trump’s status as front-runner in the GOP’s primary race. But the pediatric neurosurgeon-turned-would-be-president is far from the kind of candidate that many mainstream Republicans, including many Jews, have come to know. Alongside his classic conservatism on social and family issues, Carson has…
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Hunting the Graveyards for America’s Holiest Jews
The burial sites of the world’s great Jewish sages have served for centuries as spiritual magnets, drawing pious Jews on far-flung pilgrimages to pray in their presence. Each Rosh Hashanah, the grave of Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, the famed 18th century Hasidic master, draws tens of thousands of Hasidim to Uman, Ukraine. Likewise, the graves…
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Some Fear Refugee Center Planned for Amsterdam’s Jewish Heart
(JTA) — In Buitenveldert, a quiet residential area of the Dutch capital, special forces soldiers are watching over a Jewish school from inside unmarked cars. About half of the Netherlands’ 40,000 Jews live here and in the adjacent suburb of Amstelveen, the only areas of the country with a large and recognizable presence of Jews….
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