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4 Midterm Congressional Races for Jews to Watch
(JTA) — With midterm elections just around the corner, four races for the House of Representatives in particular are catching our Jewish eyes. In the Los Angeles area, Ted Lieu and Elan Carr are battling to succeed retiring Democratic stalward Henry Waxman. A Republican Jewish candidate is mounting a strong challenge for a Long Island…
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When Jews Found Refuge in Pakistan
When Hazel Kahan went back to Lahore, Pakistan, in 2011 for the first time in 40 years, her childhood homes were completely different. Her first home, formerly a tan stone mansion covered in flowery vines, was now completely painted in white and inhabited by the Rokhri family, one of Pakistan’s most powerful political clans. Her…
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How Do You Celebrate Simchat Torah When Your Rabbi Has Been Arrested?
A young woman jogging down O Street Thursday night slowed down as she passed by Kesher Israel synagogue, in the heart of Georgetown. “My father used to go here,” she told a group of congregants standing outside, before entering services on the eve of Simchat Torah. “I just wanted to tell you to be strong.”…
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The Hebrew School on Wheels
Cantor Debbi Ballard wasn’t reaching as many students as she had hoped to back when she started her own Hebrew school based out of public spaces, like Dunkin’ Donuts, last fall. So this year, Ballard went one step further in her attempt to innovate: She bought a 38-foot recreational vehicle and converted it into a…
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Unlikely Sukkah Fight Pits Milwaukee High School Students Against Jewish Parents
A group of suburban Milwaukee students received an unexpected lesson in Jewish civics this Sukkot when they sought to build a sukkah at their public school for the second straight year. Administrators at Nicolet High School in Glendale, Wisconsin, allowed the sukkah last year, which Jewish students said provided an opportunity to educate others about…
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Orthodox Group Probed Alleged ‘Mikveh Peep’ Rabbi Barry Freundel
A national Orthodox rabbinic association recently investigated allegations of impropriety made against the rabbi accused of videotaping women at his mikvah, the Forward has learned. Rabbi Barry Freundel, spiritual leader of the Washington, D.C. congregation Kesher Israel, will be charged with voyeurism after a witness allegedly saw him installing a hidden camera above a shower…
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Tales of a Jewish ‘Nun’
My high-school nickname was “The Jewish Nun,” and it has taken me almost 20 years to see the appropriateness of it. The “nun” part was an accurate description of my high school theatrical career, which was oddly confined to religious roles, including a novice in a one-act play about a convent sheltering Jews during the…
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How Are We To Die?
Scroll down to tell us your story about making an end-of-life decision for a loved one. Signing the papers to officially place my father into hospice care was among the most difficult tasks of my life. But it was also one of the most gratifying. Long before the day arrived, I had begun carrying a…
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Rabbi Barry Freundel Arrested — Suspected of Peeping on Women in Mikvah
Rabbi Barry Freundel, the spiritual leader of one of Washington D.C.’s most prominent Modern Orthodox synagogues, was suspended without pay by his congregation Tuesday after police arrested him on charges that he used cameras to peep on women in the synagogue’s mikvah, or ritual bath. Freundel, whose congregation includes Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and ex-Sen….
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20 Rabbis Join Rallies in Ferguson as Anger Keeps Building
Outside the Ferguson police station, under a steady rain, the rabbis were asking the cops to repent. “We repent for the sins of our community, not only for the things we personally did,” Rabbi Jill Jacobs told one officer. “I asked him if he would join me in repenting, and he didn’t really respond.” Two…
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The End-of-Life Battle Over Jewish Souls
Sylvia Sodden lay on life support in a critical care room in Brooklyn when her health care proxy made the hardest choice: He decided to end her life. But before any machines could be unplugged, her relatives turned to Chayim Aruchim, a program that helps ultra-Orthodox Jews navigate end-of-life care. Chayim Aruchim referred the family…
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