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News As Chicago Jews mourn the Standard Club, some refuse to say goodbye
The announcement came in early March: The Standard Club, a nexus of Jewish life in Chicago for 150 years, would be closing its doors May 1 and its building, a 13-story, 1920s high rise designed by Detroit architect Albert Kahn, would be sold. Thanks to the coronavirus, the club didn’t last even that long. It…
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News In Chicago and Boston, Jewish chaplains are on the COVID-19 surge front lines
As he walks the hallways of a large suburban Chicago hospital amidst an increasing number of COVID-19 patients, Rabbi Ariel Marinelli is scared. “My wife and I are on the same page,” said the 37-year-old Orthodox rabbi. “She too gets nervous.” It’s a familiar but dispiriting return to the pandemic front lines for Marinelli, the…
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Food How to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas in a pandemic? Ask the Jews.
Across America, families are struggling with how to cope with a holiday season without the traditions they look forward to all year long, and without those they love and are longing to see. Family gatherings for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve simply aren’t safe as COVID-19 cases spike across the nation. I have good…
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News Does Eric Garcetti deserve a Biden administration job? Depends whom you ask.
In late September, six months into a global pandemic that had devastated his city, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti prayed. It was Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, and things were a mess. On his watch, more than 250,000 people in L.A. County had tested positive for the Covid-19 virus. More than 6,000 had…
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News Advice to the Second Gentleman from a veteran male ‘rebbetzin’
Nobody knew what to call me either. Just over 30 years ago, I walked into a synagogue in Venice, California, met the rabbi, Naomi Levy, and felt my heart pound. A year-and-a-half later, we were married. She was my Kamala. Back then, women rabbis weren’t as scarce as Black-Indian female Vice Presidents-elect, but they weren’t…
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News Remembering Chicago activist and philanthropist Linda Sher
After the 1980 election, many friends of Israel in Congress were defeated by political groups that opposed Israel and the values of mainstream American Jewry. The far right movement was on the rise. Seeing these changes and the political danger it posed for the U.S.-Israel relationship, a young woman from Chicago named Linda Sher decided…
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Community A prayer for our country after the election
Our nation has chosen a new leader To guide us forward in this challenging time. Help us, God, to unite our great country In the wake of a contentious election. Teach us to listen to one another, To heal our divisions and to restore hope. The days that lie before us will not be easy,…
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Fast Forward ‘Do not panic:’ Jewish groups call for complete count as Trump falsely claims victory
President Donald Trump baselessly told voters he had won the election during an early morning press conference at the White House Wednesday, even as former Vice President Joe Biden held onto an electoral college edge and millions of ballots in battleground states had yet to be counted. The president stood in front of supporters at…
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Opinion Outrage over Nicholas Kristof’s op-ed on sexual assault of Palestinians is missing the point
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News They texted about Torah and mitzvahs. Feds say they were insider trading
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Opinion I run The Jewish Theological Seminary. Here’s the real story about President Isaac Herzog speaking at our commencement
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Fast Forward Talarico won’t campaign with Democratic House candidate who wants to open ‘a prison for American Zionists’
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News At Trump’s Christian revival on the National Mall, one rabbi made a Jewish case for America
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Fast Forward California judge says Kars4Kids misled donors by omitting Orthodox Jewish mission from ads
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Fast Forward Pacific Palisades Jews, displaced by fire, reopen their synagogue as part of returning home
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Culture At Eurovision, Israel’s near triumph shows the limits of tolerance