Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of rabbis, the spiritual leaders of Jewish congregations.
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News Online-Ordained Rabbis Grab Pulpits
Rabbi Eli Kavon’s colleagues don’t consider him a rabbi. Ordained in two years via a correspondence course by a virtually unknown rabbinical seminary in Long Island, he’s not a member of any mainstream rabbinical association. Nor is Kavon eligible for membership on the local board of rabbis. His congregation, a Conservative synagogue in Boca Raton,…
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Breaking News Rabbi Sacks: Gaza War ‘Got To Do With Iran’
The BBC issued an apology to British Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks after a presenter asked him about the Gaza operation while he thought he was off the air. Sacks presented the “Thought for the Day” on BBC Radio 4 Today on Friday. After the segment, presenter Evan Davies asked the rabbi’s opinion on the conflict…
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Breaking News Rabbi Slammed for Linking Sandy to Gay Marriage
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo slammed a rabbi who called superstorm Sandy “divine justice” for gay-friendly policies. Rabbi Nosom Leiter, head of Torah Jews for Decency, praised the destructive storm for making a point, especially in lower Manhattan, which he branded “one of the national centers for homosexuality,” the Daily News reported. Cuomo dismissed the…
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Breaking News Aussie Chabad Turf War Heads to Religious Court
A rabbinical court in New York will determine the fate of a controversial Chabad rabbi in Melbourne who has been dismissed from his post amid allegations of improper conduct. A Chabad spokesman confirmed that Rabbi Chaim Herzog has appealed his dismissal after he received an official letter last month saying he no longer has the…
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Breaking News Dutch Rabbi Objects to Nazis in Monument
A Dutch rabbi has demanded that the names of his relatives be removed from a monument which commemorates Jewish Holocaust victims along with German soldiers who died in World War II. “I don’t want my family members’ names to appear next to the names of German murderers,” Rabbi Wim van Dijk said in a filmed…
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Opinion Prophets or Partisans?
October 7 is Pulpit Freedom Sunday, when hundreds of pastors are expected to openly violate the law of the land and preach politics from the pulpit. The law they intend to violate is known as the Johnson Amendment. Enacted in 1954 and sponsored by then-Senator Lyndon B. Johnson, it limits the amount of political activity…
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Breaking News Rabbi: Burn Your iPhones!
A prominent haredi Orthodox rabbi in Israel ordered his followers to burn their iPhones. The call by Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, 84, appeared Sunday on the front page of the religious daily newspaper Yated Neeman, according to the Failed Messiah website. Following the decree by Kanievsky, large posters appeared throughout Jerusalem’s haredi neighborhoods calling iPhones “an…
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Breaking News Romney Talks Economy and Iran in Call to Rabbis
Mitt Romney discussed Iran, the economy and Medicare in a holiday call with rabbis and other Jewish leaders. The 20-minute call Thursday was organized by the Republican candidate’s presidential campaign. Word went out through a number of Jewish list-serves and Romney did not directly mention President Obama in order not to compromise the nonprofit status…
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Culture Why saying ‘L’shana Tova’ on Rosh Hashanah may not be the correct phrase
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Opinion With killing of Hezbollah’s chief, Israel occupies the inarguable moral high ground
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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 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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