This is the Forward’s coverage of rabbis, the spiritual leaders of Jewish congregations.
Rabbis
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Art The Jewish Community Still Discriminates Against Bastards. These Artists Are Demanding Change.
Inside a small room in Jerusalem, four artists are taking on one of the most deep-rooted taboos in Judaism: That of the mamzer, the illegitimate child. A mamzer is someone born as the result of a sexual relationship forbidden in the Torah. Translated in English as “misbegotten” (according to the JPS Tanakh, but also commonly…
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News Reform Synagogues Underpay Female Rabbis — Despite Emphasis On Social Justice
Reform synagogues are chronically underpaying female rabbis, according to a previously unreported study issued this past summer by the Reform movement. Women in senior or solo rabbi positions at larger Reform congregations are paid 85% of what men make in the same jobs, the survey found. And while men outnumber women 4-to-1 among senior or…
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News So People Are Dressing Up As Rabbis. Is That Kosher?
Cherokee sweetheart. Trayvon Martin. Sexy nun. Adult rabbi. Every Halloween season features a signature stew of timely and extremely offensive costumes — such as the 2013 Trayvon Martin costume, the 2015 Caitlyn Jenner look-alikes and last year’s Zika-carrying mosquitoes. Just last week, the internet exploded in a rage about the sale of Anne Frank outfits….
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Opinion How Knesset Push Will Actually Help Chained Women Worldwide
Israeli lawmakers are considering a law that would help Orthodox women across the world. Jewish law does not permit a woman to divorce her husband without his consent, and in Israel and abroad, a number of women who wish to leave their husbands are unable to do so. These women are known as agunoth –…
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Opinion Why Move to Free Chained Women Will Only Further Shackle Them
On Monday, the government of Israel announced that it found a solution to a problem that has long plagued Orthodox women. A new bill purports to help agunoth, or women who haven’t received a religious bill of divorce (known as a get) from their husbands. This means that they are chained to these husbands (agunah…
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News Did AIPAC Secretly Write Your Rabbi’s Sermon?
AIPAC may have secretly written your rabbi’s sermon. Each week, the pro-Israel lobby the American Israel Public Affairs Committee sends out two prewritten sermons to rabbis across the United States, pushing AIPAC’s legislative agenda and its policy goals. And each week, AIPAC reminds rabbis that they shouldn’t tell congregants where they got the pre-written texts….
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Fast Forward Rabbis Puzzled By Conservative Movement’s ‘No-News’ Intermarriage Stance
NEW YORK (JTA) — “It doesn’t help.” “I don’t know how it happened or why it happened.” “The most common response I’m seeing is confusion.” That’s what some Conservative rabbis are saying about their movement’s recent major statement on intermarriage, which reasserts the ban on rabbis performing interfaith weddings while urging its member synagogues to…
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Fast Forward Hasidic Rabbi Pleads Not Guilty In Vermont Police Chase
A Brooklyn rabbi pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to charges that he led police on a 4-1/2 mile car chase in Vermont, the AP reported. Rabbi Berl Fink was pulled over at gunpoint in August after failing to stop after being suspected of speeding on a remote highway. Berl was driving his wife and two…
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Fast Forward ‘Murdered for speaking truth’: Netanyahu and US Jewish leaders mourn Charlie Kirk
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Fast Forward The fraudster at the center of an NBA scandal once proclaimed ‘tzedek tzedek tirdof’
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News A new kaffiyeh policy is designed to help divided Jews pray together. Is this the Jewish future?
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Opinion To save the Jewish state, pro-Israel Jews must break from Netanyahu
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Yiddish World Yiddish activist Bella Bryks Klein embraced the language with people of all ages
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Culture Spirituality or intellectualism? An age-old High Holiday debate
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Fast Forward Antisemitism flares and ‘Reichstag’ mentions soar online in wake of Charlie Kirk assassination
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Opinion Charlie Kirk and Alan Berg: 2 murders, 41 years apart, show the painful perils of polarization
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