This is the Forward’s coverage of rabbis, the spiritual leaders of Jewish congregations.
Rabbis
The Latest
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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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Opinion The OU Is Right: Orthodox Women Shouldn’t Be Rabbis
Most of a rabbi’s roles can be halachically and effectively assumed by women, and have been for many years. A rabbi must be learned in Jewish texts and the practical laws pertaining to daily Jewish life — and Orthodox women’s seminaries teach thousands of young Jewish women those laws, and do a top-notch job of…
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Fast Forward Rabbis Plan Sukkot Protest At Trump Tower Over Immigration
A group of rabbis is planning on staging a Sukkot-themed protest against the administration’s immigration policies outside Trump Tower on Monday. T’ruah, the rabbinic human rights organization, will erect a sukkah in front of President Trump’s residence on Monday morning in attempt to demonstrate how the administration’s decision to ban refugees and immigrants from certain…
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Fast Forward Rabbi Writes Anti-Gun Protest Prayer After Las Vegas Shooting
As Americans process the horrific Sunday night shooting in Las Vegas, one rabbi has put pen to paper, writing a protest prayer-poem about gun violence. Titled “Unetaneh Tokef for America,” Rabbi Douglas Sagal’s poem protests the inability of politicians to pass gun control – and links to it a deadly epidemic of a firearms violence….
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Opinion In Bruce Springsteen’s new anti-ICE protest song, a nod to Minnesota’s own Bob Dylan
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Fast Forward After Minneapolis shooting, local Jewish service channels a city’s grief and resolve
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Holy Ground A millennial rabbi built a synagogue where others have closed. Her maverick ideas are becoming a model.
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Culture ‘The Pitt’ tackled the trauma of the Tree of Life attack. Here’s how survivors of the synagogue shooting reacted to the episode.
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Fast Forward How a law used to protect synagogues is now being deployed against ICE protesters and journalists
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Fast Forward ADL appoints former head of embattled Gaza aid foundation to its board
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