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Major Effort To Promote Day Schools Shows Mixed Results
When the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education was founded in 1997, it had commitments of $18 million from a dozen leading Jewish philanthropists, and it had lofty goals: to create 25 new Jewish day schools and to double the percentage of non-Orthodox students who attend all Jewish day schools. Fourteen years later, PEJE’S founding…
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When a Synagogue Program May Be an Illegal Hostel
The MacDougal Street Synagogue in New York City doesn’t have a sanctuary or a rabbi. It doesn’t run prayer services or perform weddings. And it doesn’t have a congregation. It does, however, operate budget hostels in six buildings in Manhattan. Or it did, until the New York City Department of Buildings closed four of them,…
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New Hasidic Radicals Bellow Down Tel Aviv’s Streets
The monotonous din of traffic permeated the air on Tel Aviv’s Sheinkin Street on a recent Friday afternoon, when, suddenly, a large white cargo van whipped around the corner, blasting music from a pair of huge roof-mounted loudspeakers. A few people walking on the crowded sidewalks stopped to stare as five bearded young men wearing…
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Will Weiner’s Jewish District Hit The Political Chopping Block?
The Forest Hills Jewish Center, a prominent Conservative synagogue in central Queens, occupies a large, sand-colored building next to a Chevrolet dealership on Queens Boulevard, a busy thoroughfare that cuts through the community’s hulking brick housing complexes. On a recent Friday night, about three dozen congregants gathered in a small, carpeted room inside the Jewish…
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Rainbow Flags Aflutter, Orthodox Groups Enter a Float in Gay Pride Parade
Amid a sea of rainbow flags and equal-rights banners at Tel Aviv’s 18th annual Gay Pride parade, an unexpected soundtrack filled the air: Hasidic music. Despite the suspicions of some marchers, it wasn’t an act of protest by Orthodox groups. Rather, the music was coming from a float designed by a group of Orthodox gay…
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Al Schwimmer, Father of Air Force
Al Schwimmer, a New York native whose actions were described by David Ben-Gurion as the Diaspora’s most important contribution to the survival of Israel, died June 11. He died on his birthday at age 94 in Tel Aviv. He used his contacts and experience as a World War II flight engineer for the U.S. Air…
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Why We Need the Hora
The hora is running on fumes. Go to any bar mitzvah or Jewish wedding, and sure, you’ll still find folks doing that primordial party dance. Some are kicking up a storm, faces glistening with glee (and sweat). But plenty more are simply squashed together, shuffling in the same general direction, feigning frolic. It feels less…
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Solving the Mystery of Washington’s Famous Letter
It started as a mystery. During a lecture in England last December, Jonathan Sarna, America’s foremost scholar of American Jewish history, said he did not know the whereabouts of one of American Jewry’s most important documents: George Washington’s letter to the Hebrew Congregation, in Newport, R.I. Upon this yellowed piece of 18th-century rag paper is…
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Are Jews Warming to the Tea Party?
It took Republican congresswoman and Tea Party icon Michele Bachmann less than 24 hours after President Obama’s Middle East address to launch an attack on him. On May 19, 150,000 residents in Iowa and South Carolina received robo-calls from Bachmann, accusing Obama of not standing up for Israel. Bachmann, who on June 13 formally joined…
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Conservative Judaism’s Umbrella Group Cuts 15 Jobs and Regional Operations
Conservative Judaism’s North American congregational umbrella has announced the elimination of its regional operations as it begins to implement the strategic plan it adopted this spring. The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism terminated 15 staff members and reshuffled others while announcing success in its early fundraising efforts and cuts to membership dues. The moves signal…
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Rick Jacobs To Take Helm of URJ Next Year
Rabbi Richard Jacobs was unanimously elected to serve as president of the Union for Reform Judaism. Jacobs, the senior rabbi at Westchester Reform Temple in Scarsdale, N.Y., was elected Sunday by the URJ board of trustees. He will assume the presidency in 2012, succeeding Rabbi Eric Yoffie. He was nominated earlier this year. “As I…
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