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What a Long, Strange Shabbat It’s Been
As a gentle snow fell on the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center last Friday evening, some 85 people gathered inside a wooden lodge to welcome Shabbat – half in a meditation circle in which Grateful Dead lyrics served as a kind of mantra, the other in a more “traditional” service where the Lecha Dodi prayer…
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Marvin Miller, Led Baseball Players to Free Agency
The baseball establishment has five times rejected Marvin Miller, who freed players from indentured servitude, from its Hall of Fame. In a 2008 interview, he said, “After I’m dead, they can induct me and put an asterisk on my plaque, with a footnote: ‘But let’s not forget he was Jewish.’” It is still questionable whether…
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Online-Ordained Rabbis Grab Pulpits
Rabbi Eli Kavon’s colleagues don’t consider him a rabbi. Ordained in two years via a correspondence course by a virtually unknown rabbinical seminary in Long Island, he’s not a member of any mainstream rabbinical association. Nor is Kavon eligible for membership on the local board of rabbis. His congregation, a Conservative synagogue in Boca Raton,…
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Kosher Controversy Catches Pole Off Guard
News that ritual slaughter could be banned in Poland caught Jakub Lopinski at a critical moment in his career. Lopinski, a non-Jewish entrepreneur from Krakow, was preparing to open a new kosher slaughterhouse in an attempt to carve out a niche for himself in Poland’s large export industry for halal and kosher meat. But the…
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Sandy-Hit Shuls Apply for Aid Despite Ban
UJA-Federation of New York and other Jewish agencies are helping synagogues damaged during Hurricane Sandy to apply for aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, even though the government agency currently bars grants to houses of worship because of concern that such aid may violate the First Amendment. Nathan Diament, executive director of public policy…
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Kibbutz Is Top Spot for Jordan River Baptisms
Orlando Soares, a charismatic Christian pastor on pilgrimage from England, emerged from the Jordan River, close to where Jesus is said to have been baptized, beaming with happiness. “It’s like a restart — a declaration I want to do everything again,” he said. “You’re reborn. It represents new life and new commitment to God.” Busy…
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Seeking To Defuse Liberal Critique of Israel
Anti-Israel groups were elated this past March when the City of Seattle’s Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Commission abruptly canceled a forum featuring six Israeli LGBT activists on an Israeli government supported tour sponsored by a gay and lesbian Jewish group promoting ties with their Israeli counterparts. The Israel critics, who had protested the appearance as…
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Tea Party’s Rand Paul Will Join Trip to Israel
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a skeptic of assistance to Israel who also is considering a 2016 presidential run, will travel to Israel. Paul will be accompanied by Christian and Jewish leaders, a report Friday on the Christian Broadcasting Network website, and will also visit Jordan. He will meet with leaders in both countries, as well…
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Israeli Hoops Star Finds Relief on Court
When Naama Shafir takes the court for the University of Toledo, there’s an unquestionable sense of relief. It helps that her team is on a winning and that Shafir is averaging 10.2 points, 4.4 rebounds and 5.6 assists per contest. And for Shafir, a native of Hoshaya, Israel, being back on the court at all…
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Fido Did His Business! Dogwalkers Go Digital
Customers of a dog-walking company in New York City need no longer wonder whether or not their pet stopped for a bathroom break while out for its daily stroll – they now receive a text message each time their dog does the deed. Swifto, which walks dogs in the city’s boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn,…
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Finding an Unexpected Israeli Identity
At first, the young man’s story sounds familiar: Tall, green-eyed, he walks the corridors of his university and his peers often shout at him, “Jew, go back to where you came from!” But we are not in Eastern Europe in 1881, and the student, Mohand, is not Jewish — he is an Arab Israeli studying…
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