Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of rabbis, the spiritual leaders of Jewish congregations.
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Life Daring To Daven at the Kotel
Before leaving for Israel, where she will take part in the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations’ annual mission to the Jewish state, Rabbi Julie Schonfeld reflects on the recent debacle over women’s prayer at the Western Wall — responding both as the Rabbinical Assembly’s executive vice president and as the mother of two…
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Life Rabbi Recounts Seminary Profs’ Sexist Remarks
On the heels of a Forward survey revealing that fewer than one in six Jewish communal organizations are run by women, and that those women who do occupy top jobs earn less than their male counterparts comes an essay by Rabbi Rebecca W. Sibru about her personal experience with sexism during rabbinical school and in…
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Life Conservative Women Rabbis Celebrate Changes, Still Face Struggles
Much has changed for female rabbis in the 25 years since the first woman was ordained in the Conservative movement — including acceptance by peers and congregants — but some things, including more difficulty getting good jobs and resentment from other women, remain challenging. These issues were explored at a conference at the Jewish Theological…
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Life When Swine Flu Flies, Rabbis Take to the Skies
The swine flu epidemic continues to rage in Israel. Referred to by its scientific name of H1N1 to avoid the stigma of the unkosher pig, swine flu (by whatever name) is flying through the population with 2,000 reported cases and five reported fatalities. To fight this, a group of rabbis and mystics took to the…
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Life Black Female Rabbi Soon to be Ordained
Saturday will mark a new era for the Jewish community as the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati ordains mainstream Judaism’s first African-American female rabbi, Alysa Stanton. According to a report issued by the Institute for Jewish and Community Outreach in San Francisco, twenty percent of the Jewish population in the United States,…
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News Obama Chats With 900 Rabbis on Issues and Renewal
Rosh Hashanah is more than a week away, but Barack Obama drew upon the High Holy Days themes of renewal and rededication in a conference call with more than 900 rabbis. “I know that for rabbis this is the busiest time of the year as you prepare for the High Holy Days,” the Democratic presidential…
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News Barack Obama’s Rabbi(s)
Will a rabbi’s blessing help Barack Obama? What about 300 rabbis? And will the IRS find this arrangement kosher? “Rather than sit and yell at my television, I thought there was an opportunity to do something,” said Rabbi Steven Bob of Congregation Etz Chaim in Lombard, Ill, in the western suburbs of Chicago. Rabbis for…
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Life The Rebbe and the Shoah
There have long been those within ultra-Orthodox Jewry who regarded the Holocaust as divine punishment for what they saw as the sins of the Jews: Zionism, liberalism, irreligiosity, religiosity they disliked, etc. Most recently, former Israeli chief Sephardic rabbi, Mordecai Eliyahu, placed the blame for the Nazi genocide on Reform Judaism. According to a respected…
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Culture Why saying ‘L’shana Tova’ on Rosh Hashanah may not be the correct phrase
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Culture A Jewish prophet of the 1980s would be horrified to see that we didn’t heed his warnings
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Opinion With killing of Hezbollah’s chief, Israel occupies the inarguable moral high ground
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Opinion This is the most disorienting Rosh Hashanah in memory
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Film & TV How Leonard Cohen — and a Yom Kippur prayer — inspired a coming-of-age epic
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Opinion A year after Oct. 7, Israel has the chance to remake its future — for better or worse
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Opinion Campus protests defined the year since Oct. 7. Could they actually change U.S. policy?
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Special Report At the kibbutz hit hardest on Oct. 7, a wrenching debate over how to rebuild
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