The Reform movement’s Central Conference of American Rabbis joined a lawsuit against North Carolina’s ban on same-sex marriages. The lawsuit, which was filed April 28 by the United Church of Christ and several same-sex couples, alleges that North Carolina’s Amendment One and other state laws make it illegal for clergy to officiate at a same-sex…
(JTA) — When she decided to split up from her husband, she went before an Orthodox rabbinical court and, after two perfunctory hearings and little discussion, received a religious writ of divorce. It was only months later that the woman learned that the court had flagged her as an adulteress and placed her on a…
● A Bintel Brief: Love and Longing in Old New York By Liana Finck Ecco, 128 pages, $17.99 The advice column known as “A Bintel Brief,” meaning “a bundle of letters,” was the brainchild of Abraham Cahan, the founder of the Forverts, the original Yiddish-language incarnation of this very publication. In 1906, when the paper…
They live as part of Jewish society in the Jewish state, but the state itself does not consider them Jewish. For Israel, some 330,000 immigrants, mostly from the former Soviet Union, represent a big assimilation problem and a big political problem, made worse by the fact that the only solution for this largely non-religious group…
(JTA) — Even if you converted to Judaism under Orthodox auspices, your conversion may be called into question by the Israeli Chief Rabbinate and the Rabbinical Council of America, the main centrist Orthodox rabbinical group in the United States. If you live in Israel, this means your ability to marry a Jew is in jeopardy….
A New York personal trainer pleaded guilty on Thursday to being part of a New Jersey ring that used violence to coerce Jewish husbands to agree to grant their wives religious divorces, federal prosecutors said on Thursday. David Hellman, 31, was one of 10 men, including two Orthodox Jewish rabbis, arrested last fall in the…
(JTA) — To be married in Israel, immigrants must prove their Jewish ancestry to the country’s Chief Rabbinate. Couples can solicit a letter from their hometown rabbis or present their parents’ Jewish marriage contracts. Sometimes they even bring a Yiddish-speaking grandmother before a rabbinical court. In the end, every claim has to pass through one…
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…
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