UPDATED TUESDAY APRIL 9, 2013 AT 2:10PM Natan Sharansky, chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, will present a plan today to expand the Western Wall plaza in Jerusalem to include a new section for egalitarian prayer to American Jewish religious leaders, the Forward has learned. If implemented, the proposal, a product of months of…
Israel’s Haredim may be on the cusp of losing even more of their power following their exclusion from the new government. If David Stav gets his way, they will no longer control the rabbinate. The self-styled iconoclast is standing in the election for Ashkenazi chief rabbi this summer, and already has the support of several…
Syria’s government has withdrawn a significant number of troops from the Golan Heights, raising Western concerns. The redeployment of Syrian troops is the most significant in 40 years, the British daily The Guardian reported. Rebel groups have moved into the area, leading to Israeli fears that the rebels could attack its northern border. “They [the…
President Barack Obama is set to make a fresh plea on Monday for a reluctant Congress to pass new gun control legislation – one of his top domestic policy priorities – as he travels to Connecticut, where December’s school massacre took place. Initial momentum for tougher U.S. gun control laws sought by Obama after the…
The civil war now engulfing the Republican Party is laying bare a split among Jewish GOP supporters, as well. Some of the party’s biggest Jewish donors are taking the lead in pushing for a more moderate conservative party following the Republicans’ defeat in last year’s presidential election. At the same time, grassroots Jewish supporters, many…
An 800-year-old nutrition plan could become Israel’s next fad diet. Gil Yosef Shachar, a Jerusalem-based physician, is traveling around Israel spreading the wisdom of Maimonides, or the Rambam, the medieval Jewish philosopher and doctor whose approach to healthful eating has garnered him followers from well beyond the grave. In his writings, the Rambam gave clear…
Most people know Chaim Topol as Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof.” But to a group of sick Jewish and Arab children in the Galilee, Topol is their biggest cheerleader. Israel’s first international movie star was instrumental in the creation of the Jordan River Village, a camp for children with serious and life-threatening illnesses. He…
On a recent Friday evening, Shabbat services at the West End Temple in the Rockaways was literally humming. The vibrations weren’t emanating from members immersed in prayer. They came from a diesel generator that powers the 50-foot-long trailer where services are being held since the congregation’s sanctuary suffered severe damage from Hurricane Sandy. Nearly six…
Less than a day before the start of Passover, the phone rang at the Brooklyn home of Rabbi Yisroel Belsky. On the line were concerned members of the Rabbinical Council of California, a rabbinical association in Los Angeles that provides kosher certification, among other services. The RCC had just discovered that Mike Engelman, the owner…
New York State officials have interceded in the case of a defunct Jewish burial society that was selling graves on the open market, effectively forcing the society to give up its remaining plots. At least eight people who purchased graves at Beth David Cemetery in Elmont, N.Y., from the Przedborzer Friends Society received letters in…
Another Jewish newborn — the second in three months — has contracted neonatal herpes due to a controversial oral suctioning technique employed during ritual circumcision, New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has reported. The parents of the child did not sign a recently mandated city consent form authorizing the mohel who conducted…
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