Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of rabbis, the spiritual leaders of Jewish congregations.
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News One of our reporters got an email from a rabbi asking for gift cards. Here’s what happened next.
Here at the Forward, we get emails from rabbis all the time. I counted at least a dozen just last week in my inbox. So when Aiden Pink, our deputy news editor, received a vague email seemingly from Rabbi Sheldon Kleinman of Cong. House of Israel in Hot Springs, Ark. over the weekend, he didn’t…
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News ‘Rabbi’ gift card scam spurred congregants to spend thousands
The gift card email scam targeting American rabbis and synagogues has reached communities from New York to Hawaii, with some incidents of congregants falling for the scheme. Three members of a Conservative synagogue in Virginia responded to emails they thought were from their rabbi by buying a collective $2,500 worth of gift cards. So far,…
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News Rabbis are latest clergy targeted in email gift card scam
If you or your synagogue have been the target of this email scam and would like to share details of the incident, please contact Ari Feldman at [email protected]. A low-tech email scam targeting clergy has reached American rabbis, dozens of whom have taken to social media in recent days to alert their congregants and colleagues…
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News Letter from Alabama: ‘Rabbi, will you take my dog when the Rapture comes?’
I was blessed to spend the bulk of my rabbinic service in a place I didn’t belong. I am a Yankee, born in New York, who served a synagogue in the Deep South. When I first arrived decades ago, I found myself anxiously striving to keep Judaism — and Jews — from being submerged in…
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Israel News Rabbis At Bergen-Belsen Used This Ledger To Help Holocaust Survivors Remarry
Update, 9:30 a.m.: The auction has been put on hold. A court in Tel Aviv put a hold on the sale after a lawsuit was filed by the Organization of Bergen-Belsen Survivors in Israel. Read more at this link. A ledger meant to free people from marriage to spouses who were missing and presumed dead…
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Fast Forward WATCH: Lulav-Wielding 77-Year-Old Rabbi Dragged Away By Police At Climate Protest
A 77-year-old rabbi protesting in London on Monday was arrested and dragged away from the protest by police. Rabbi Jeffrey Newman was among dozens of Jewish protesters demonstrating in the streets outside the house of the Lord Mayor of London, the Jewish News reported. The group, affiliated with the Extinction Rebellion movement, was protesting what…
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The Schmooze Watch Nick Kroll Casually Slay At Jewpardy With His Childhood Rabbi
Nick Kroll, the adult version guy who would have passed along the message that his best friend had a crush on your best friend during a USY trip, played a public game of Jewpardy with his childhood rabbi on YouTube this week. And people say it’s not the golden age of Judaism. The comic, actor,…
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The Schmooze Rabbi-Zombie Slayer Joins ‘Fear The Walking Dead’
Gaunt and wild-eyed, the hoard of congregants stumbles toward the rabbi, muttering and moaning things that sound like “You need to move my kid’s bar mitzvah date” and “Now let me tell you what I really thought of your sermon.” The rabbi shudders and says a little prayer. Then he cocks his knife-topped Winchester, and…
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Opinion Mamdani’s victory is an opportunity for Jews to relearn the art of disagreement
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