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Chicago Teen Turns the Yellow Schoolbus Green
As a seventh-grader walking home in Highland Park, Ill., Jonny Cohen would watch school buses pass by and wonder if there might be a way to make them more energy efficient. School buses are an “overlooked form of transportation,” says Jonny Cohen, now 19. “I like efficiency and for things to be efficient, and I…
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Schustermans’ Deep Roots in Oil Make Foundation Divestment Unlikely
When the Rockefeller family announced in September that their charitable foundation would sell off all its would sell off fossil fuel assets, the heirs to America’s quintessential oil baron added major heft to a growing divestment campaign. That campaign could stumble in the Jewish community, where the largest family foundation has deep, ongoing ties to…
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Is It Right To Ditch Secular Relatives for the High Holidays?
The Seesaw is a new kind of advice column in which a broad range of columnists will address the real life issues faced by interfaith couples and families. Join the discussion by commenting on this post, sharing it on Facebook or following the Forward on Twitter. And keep the questions coming. You can email your…
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Why Rabbi Ysoscher Katz Left Satmars for Progressive Start-Up Synagogue
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. He grew up among the ultra-Orthodox Satmar Jews in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, in a childhood with rules so strict that playing Frisbee at summer camp was considered a radical move. Today he serves as the spiritual leader of a small, relatively young, progressive Orthodox synagogue…
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A Satmar Girl Remembers Rosh Hashanah With Honey and Fear
If you live in a Jewish neighborhood like I do, you may periodically hear the wailing of a shofar in the distance in the month leading up to Rosh Hashanah. It is a common daily practice among Orthodox Jews, a reminder that the High Holidays are not far off. The evening air, at one time…
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Protest Against Mahmoud Abbas Fizzles at New York Speech
A planned Jewish “empty seats” protest against Mahmoud Abbas fizzled at the Palestinian President’s New York speech Monday night. There were no pro-Israel protesters in sight and dozens of Jewish students turned up to hear Abbas offer a plea for peace in the Middle East at the Cooper Union in Manhattan. Ariel Stern, the president…
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Protesters Take Aim at Metropolitan Opera’s ‘Death of Klinghoffer’
With the Metropolitan Opera’s new season set to open Monday night, protesters are calling for one show to be cancelled. The opera in question, “The Death of Klinghoffer,” composed by the contemporary American musician John Adams, tells the story of the 1985 Palestinian terrorist hijacking of the Italian cruise ship, Achille Lauro, and the subsequent…
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Jews Join Hundreds of Thousands at Largest-Ever Climate Change March
Shofar blasts rang out and ‘Save Our Planet’ signs in Yiddish peppered the streets of New York City as more than 100 Jewish groups joined the largest protest on climate change in world history. Organizers estimated 400,000 people showed up to the “People’s Climate March” on Sunday, September 21 to protest rising sea levels caused…
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Despite Winning 1,000 Pre-K Seats, N.Y. Jewish Advocates Still Frustrated
New York City awarded more than 1,000 seats to Jewish schools in its new free full-day pre-kindergarten program, but some advocates remain frustrated. Called “Pre-K for All,” the new program offers free schooling to over 50,000 New York City children and is a signature achievement for Mayor Bill de Blasio. In May, the mayor said…
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10 Reasons Why Celebrating Both Jewish and Secular New Years is a Win-Win
For members of the tribe, September marks a new year. We dip apples in honey to celebrate Rosh Hashanah. Three months later we dip chips in salsa to ring in the secular New Year. We love having two opportunities to celebrate. How is the Jewish new year, Rosh Hashanah, different from that other New Year?…
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Do’s and Don’ts of Going to Synagogue Only on High Holidays
For every Jew who goes to synagogue on only the High Holy Days, there’s a rabbi keenly aware of that fact. Sometimes even sweating over that fact. “I go through a number of different sermons — lots of paper crumpling, lots of false starts,” admitted Eli Herscher, senior rabbi of Stephen S. Wise Temple, in…
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