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America’s Top Atheist Aims To Build Jewish Support for Ungodly Agenda
David Silverman considers himself a conservative. Yet organizers of the recent Conservative Political Action Conference, a massive gathering held yearly in the nation’s capital, did all they could to make him feel unwelcome. They even took away his presenter’s booth. It was not just that Silverman was an atheist. As president of American Atheists, a…
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Sephardic Jews Won’t Face ‘Strict’ Spanish Citizenship Rules, Justice Minister Says
When Spain finally offers citizenship to Sephardic Jews, will you qualify? According to Spain’s Justice Minister, who spoke at the American Jewish Committee’s offices in New York on March 19, the requirements to prove Sephardic descent will be loose. “The government is not looking to be strict,” said Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, speaking with the Forward after…
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Many Crimea Jews Said To Back New Union With Russia
Crimea’s most prominent rabbi has fled to Kiev. But the Jewish community that remains is largely happy living in a fledgling Crimean republic under the control of the Russian Federation. Rabbi Misha Kapustin, who oversaw the region’s liberal Jewish congregations, moved to the Ukrainian capital ahead of Crimea’s March 16 referendum. Meanwhile, religious emissaries from…
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Toulouse Jewish Leader Urges Young Jews To Flee France
On the two-year anniversary of the murder of four Jews in Toulouse, the president of the local Jewish community encouraged young Jews to leave France. Arie Bensemhoun, the community’s president, said young Jews should leave Toulouse because they could not practice Judaism openly and without fear there. “I won’t deny that, yes, I encourage the…
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Prepping a Muslim for His First-Ever Seder
The Seesaw is a new kind of advice column in which a 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…
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Gisela Dollinger, Holocaust Survivor Who Escaped With Husband, Dies at 111
(JTA) — Gisela Kohn Dollinger tricked death twice. Soon after Kristallnacht, when she was 36, Dollinger persuaded the Gestapo to release her husband from the Dachau concentration camp, and the two of them fled Austria for Shanghai, where she almost died of typhoid. After that, death seemed to forget all about her – until last…
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Shiva Shifts Toward Shorter and Livelier Jewish Mourning for Dead
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. As many an American rabbi will tell you, even Jews who rarely go to Sabbath or holiday services will often contact a local synagogue after losing a loved one, requesting help to arrange the shiva, the week-long mourning period, so that he or she can say kaddish,…
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Three Jews Among Those Killed in Ukraine Uprising
Balaclava-clad far-right paramilitaries fire into the air at the funeral in Ukraine of an anti-government protestor. This is not a tribute to a fellow right-wing nationalist, but to a Jewish construction worker, Alexander Scherbanyuk. Of the approximately 100 people killed during the protests in Kiev that swept Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich from power in February,…
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Rabbis 2014 Rabbi Ted Falcon
Rabbi Falcon helped heal the childhood wound in my soul of being “half” Jewish; not quite acceptable in my Jewish family and not understood in my non-Jewish world. This left me feeling intimidated and inauthentic. In 1996, I walked into a Rosh Hashanah service lead by Rabbi Ted. The congregation was warm, happy and engaged….
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Rabbis 2014 Rabbi Jesse Olitzky
I moved to Jacksonville, Fla., almost two years ago with my fiancée (now my wife). We were in the midst of planning our wedding in Jacksonville and had yet to find a rabbi to marry us. All of the synagogues in Jacksonville required us to become members in order to perform our ceremony. Since we…
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Rabbis 2014 Rabbi Aviva Fellman
Even rabbis need to have rabbis. Three years ago we hired Rabbi Fellman, a fifth-year student at JTS, to read Torah and help out in our congregation. As the “senior rabbi,” my job was to serve as her mentor. Rabbi Fellman quickly became a colleague and an important part of our community, not just a…
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