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Jacob Bender Is First Jew To Lead Chapter of Muslim Advocacy Group CAIR
Jacob Bender is set to be the voice of Philadelphia-area Muslims, to take on discrimination they encounter in workplace and in the public sphere, and to fight expressions of hate. And his Jewish faith, Bender believes, can only help him do the job effectively. “The Muslim community is under attack from Islamophobic forces, and it…
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Demanding Answers in Unsolved Murder of Palestinian-American Activist Alex Odeh
Civil rights groups are demanding that the FBI solve a 28-year-old California murder long thought to be the work of Jewish extremists. Alex Odeh, the Palestinian-American regional director of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee, was killed in October 1985 by a pipe bomb that exploded when he opened his office door. No one has ever been…
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Alabama Shul Lures 20 Families With 50K Offer
A smalltown Alabama synagogue has lured 20 Jewish families with a millionaire’s offer of $50,000 to relocate there. Temple Emanu-El in Dothan, Alabama, has offered 20 Jewish families $50,000 to move to their town, the Peanut Capital of the World, and help boost the congregation’s dwindling numbers, the Associated Press reported. Dothan, also known as…
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Conservatives Use 100-Year Marker To Push ‘Restart’ Button
At the recent centennial celebration of American Judaism’s Conservative movement, the top issue on everyone’s mind was nowhere on the formal agenda. But then, when leaders of the movement began planning the schedule for their conference months ago, the landmark survey of American Jews, released on October 1 by the Pew Research Center was still…
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How Naugahyde Helped Kitchen Chairs Stay in a Jewish Family for Generations
One of my mother’s favorite Yiddish proverbs was, “You can’t sit on two horses with one behind.” A fine observation, but growing up in Brooklyn, sitting on even one was unlikely. My own steed was the lid of a sewing machine, a rounded wooden case shaped like a covered bridge with curved corners. Heigh-ho, Singer….
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Yasser Arafat’s Underwear Offers Few Clues About Palestinian Leader’s Death
Nine years after the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and more than a year after Al Jazeera broadcast a report claiming he died of radiation exposure to polonium 210, the circumstances of Arafat’s death remain a mystery. Since February of last year, however, teams of Swiss toxicology experts have been seeking to solve the…
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William Rapfogel’s Empire at Met Council Extends Deep Into Real Estate
From his office above Manhattan’s Financial District, William Rapfogel controlled a charitable empire much larger than most understood. His organization, Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, gave food to poor Jews. But it also cooked up massive real estate deals with powerful for-profit developers, throwing up new low-income housing across the city. All told, Met Council…
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Lost Lovers Reconnect 70 Years Later After Letters Found on Tel Aviv Street
While an abandoned suitcase on a Tel Aviv street corner is often cause for panic, when Yosef Halper saw a vintage leatherette travel bag on his commute home from his bookshop a few years ago, he turned around to investigate. “I used to be a compulsive garbage examiner,” he joked. Inside, he discovered a “collector’s…
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Conservatives Mark Centennial With Push To Stem Drastic Decline
Convening for its centennial conference under the cloud of a recent survey indicating a steep drop in affiliation, the Conservative synagogue movement is trying to use the landmark gathering to mark a fresh beginning. A hundred years after the group’s founding with an ideal of combining Jewish tradition with modern life, Conservative leaders are hoping…
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Deb Tambor Child-Custody Woes Common Among Parents Who Leave Hasidic World
Deb Tambor ended her own life in response to being ostracized by her family in the upstate Hasidic enclave of New Square, N.Y. in Rockland County, her friends say. And though most Hasidim who leave insular communities don’t end their own lives, they face many of the same challenges. Tambor, who grew up in New…
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After Y.U. Drama, What About Other Jewish Groups Where Akiva Roth Worked?
The revelation that Yeshiva University hired a convicted sex offender even while facing charges that it covered up decades of sexual abuse has raised questions about the policies of other Jewish institutions at which he previously worked. The Jewish Theological Seminary, which employed the man a decade ago, says it did not know then about…
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