The debate over intermarriage — once again erupting across the Jewish community — has too easily slipped into a binary equation. Opinions are shared, statistics are drawn as weapons and institutions often double-down. Sides are chosen, often reduced to a simple yes or no: “No, never; Jewish Law forbids this.” (Or “no, never; it will…
A week after former Israeli president Shimon Peres was brought to rest in Jerusalem, a high-level memorial service was held in Washington DC’s Adas Israel synagogue, featuring Vice President Joe Biden and former secretary of state Madeleine Albright. The event was attended by community leaders as well as administration officials. Absent from the memorial ceremony…
Thousands of evangelical Christians from dozens of countries gathered in Jerusalem for a pro-Israel conference. Participants in the six-day Feast of Tabernacles conference will parade through Jerusalem’s streets on Thursday, a day before the conference ends. The attendees are from 80 countries — including some historically hostile to Israel, such as Egypt — and several…
The first time the historic Adas Israel synagogue stood in the way of progress, it occupied the corner of Sixth and G Streets NW in downtown Washington. During the 1960s, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority bought the Sixth and G Street block and began demolishing buildings to make way for its new headquarters. By…
Standing on the bimah and donning a white kippah on his head, Barack Obama passed his first synagogue appearance as president with flying colors. Obama chose a complex and subtle message for his Jewish American Heritage Month address at Adas Israel congregation, Washington’s prime Conservative synagogue, where many of the city’s Jewish government official, high…
A respected Conservative clergyman, Gil Steinlauf, senior rabbi of Washington’s Adas Israel Congregation wrote his congregants a moving letter shortly after Yom Kippur. In it, he announced that he and his wife of 20 years, Batya, would be divorcing. That alone would have been surprise enough for his congregation, considering the model marriage, complete with…
In 1977, Gerson D. Cohen, chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, approved a petition by the Rabbinical Assembly to create a committee to study the role of women as spiritual leaders in the Conservative movement. The voices included were varied, some in favor of the ordination of women as rabbis, some opposed. It…
(JTA) — Rabbi Gil Steinlauf struggled for decades with an identity that he only acknowledged publicly this week. On the Monday after Yom Kippur, Steinlauf, the married senior rabbi at Adas Israel — a large and historic Conservative synagogue in Washington, D.C. — announced that he is gay. In a letter sent to congregants, Steinlauf…
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