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France To Push for United Nations Action in the Middle East
France plans to start discussions with partners in the “coming weeks” on a United Nations Security Council resolution to lay out the parameters for ending the Middle East conflict, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Friday. “I hope that the partners who were reluctant will not be reluctant anymore,” said Fabius, referring to the…
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The Case Against ‘Jews Only!’
A summer camp I attended as a teenager has lately been burning up my Facebook feed. A couple of weekends ago, some of my childhood friends in Toronto paid $100 a ticket to attend a dinner in honor of Camp Solelim’s 50th anniversary. It sounded, from their posts, like they had fun reminiscing and reverting…
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Danny Schechter Was an Observant Jew, Even if he Rarely Set Foot in Shul
Danny Schechter, the self-described progenitor of “participatory journalism” who died March 19, first burst onto my radar screen back in the late 1970s, when I was working at WBAI-FM, the left-leaning community-sponsored radio station. One day, while laboring there, I heard a news story come in from Boston with an inordinate amount of reggae music…
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Can Jewish Transgender Teen’s Successful Coming Out Provide Model for Others?
Tom Chai Sosnik stood in front of his eighth-grade class, flecks of rainbow colored hair visible beneath his blue yarmulke, as he was wrapped in a tallit for the very first time. His classmates stood and chanted together, “Baruch HaBah [“Welcome”]” three times, and then ran forward, enveloping him in a big, messy hug. Tom’s…
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Fund to Assist Parents With Day School Tuition Set up In Sassoon Children Name
A fund to assist parents who cannot afford to pay day school tuition has been established in memory of the seven children who died in a Shabbat house fire in Brooklyn. The Sassoon Children Memorial Fund will be administered by the New York-based Jewish Communal Fund. In addition, according to Yeshiva World News, a Torah…
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After Brooklyn Fire, Assessing the Risks of Shabbat Technology
Every Friday before sundown, in countless observant Jewish homes across the United States, someone turns on a hot plate or a gas stovetop, and then doesn’t turn it off again for twenty-five hours. The practice is so common that it blends into the background of traditionally observant Jewish life. But since a malfunctioning Sabbath hot…
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My Lonely Passover in Uruguay
My college study-abroad term in Montevideo, Uruguay, left me with reasonable fluency in Spanish, a fear of slugs in sandwiches, the knowledge of more than a dozen soccer chants — and a deep, visceral love for the Jewish holiday of Passover and its accompanying festive Seder meal. The year before I lived in Uruguay, I’d…
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Can Israeli American Council Grow Without Kow-Towing to Big Donors Like Sheldon Adelson?
It was a gala reminiscent of the good old days of Jewish organizational philanthropy. When leaders of the Israeli American Council described the new community center they intend to build for Israeli expats in the San Fernando Valley, and the $10 million price tag that comes with it, hands were raised from the audience that…
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Rabbis 2015 David Joel Wolpe
Though Rabbi David Joel Wolpe’s community comes together through social media, he inspires 55,125 Facebook followers six days a week with his insightful comments on Shabbos, Torah, life, and our relationship with God, His world, and each other. I have shared so many of Rabbi Wolpe’s thoughts with my own Facebook friends that many of…
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Rabbis 2015 Samuel Gordon
Rabbi Samuel Gordon has made a difference and enriched our community through providing spiritual and personal guidance, provocation and inspiration, and serving as the still point in a turning world. For many years, Congregation Sukkat Shalom did not have its own building in which to conduct worship services or to gather. Instead, congregants were truly…
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Rabbis 2015 Eric Woodward
In just 20 months, Rabbi Eric Woodward has made a powerful impact on Jewish Columbus, Ohio, both communally and individually. From the start, Rabbi Woodward was eager to work with people whose spouses are not Jewish, people who are themselves considering conversion, or whose children have intermarried — people who sometimes struggle to feel comfortable…
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