Comedian Sarah Silverman has been called many things, but never a prophetess. Until yesterday, when she was given prophetic credentials in the magazine section of the Israeli newspaper Yediot Achronot. The accolade comes from an interview with her sister, Jerusalem-based Reform rabbi (and one of the Forward 50 list of important Jews) Susan Silverman, which…
Israel’s Chief Rabbinate extended the time within which a couple can register its intention to marry from three months to one year. The rabbinate came to the decision on Monday, Rabbi Nachman Rosenberg, executive vice president of the Tzohar rabbinical organization, told JTA. Rosenberg said the added time is a boon to couples who were…
The Chief Rabbinate of Israel rejected a letter vouching for the Jewishness of an American couple marrying in Israel written by well-known Orthodox Rabbi Avi Weiss, as well as at least 10 rabbis in other cases, The New York Jewish Week reported. Weiss, the longtime spiritual leader of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale in New…
That fight within the Jewish Home party over nominations for chief rabbi has more to it than meets the eye. True, it opens up a fault line within the religious Zionist movement, between the liberal wing that backs Rabbi David Stav and the more religiously conservative wing that backs Rabbi Yaakov Ariel. But it’s also…
L’Chaim! It’s nearly time to celebrate for the 60,000 Israelis who, until now, were unable to marry in their own country because they are not Jewish according to Orthodox interpretations of Jewish law. And thousands of Jewish couples will be extremely jealous. A new marriage registrar, expected to be approved by the Israeli government within…
No one really likes to think about getting circumcised, but undergoing the procedure twice? No thank you. Yet some parents in the Haifa area are doing just that after news broke that a mohel botched hundreds of circumcisions and failed to comply with Jewish Law. When a group of senior rabbis from Haifa attended a…
These days, we’re hearing about more ultra-Orthodox men who are turning to increasingly hateful tactics to prevent women from praying as they wish on their side of the Western Wall’s mechitza. Recently, they hurled chairs over the divider, even before the women had a chance to begin their davening. Once the police were called, the…
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