Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of rabbis, the spiritual leaders of Jewish congregations.
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Fast Forward World’s Oldest Jew Dies At 117 — Leaves Behind 125 Descendants
He was born when the Ottoman Empire still ruled modern-day Israel, the British held his native Iraq and Jews were spread throughout the Middle East. But the 117-year-old Rabbi Zecharia Barashi on Tuesday left a world very different from the one he found, as Israel’s oldest resident – and the world’s oldest Jew and rabbi…
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Fast Forward Chabad Rabbi Banned From Lithuania’s Main Synagogue
(JTA) — In an escalation of the internal feud dividing Lithuanian Jews, the Chabad movement’s senior emissary to the country was banned from the capital city’s main synagogue. Rabbi Sholem Ber Krinsky, who has lived in Vilnius for 22 years, was informed in an email Monday from the chairman of the Vilnius Jewish Religious Community…
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Fast Forward Ex-Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger Gets 4-1/2 Years For Fraud
JERUSALEM (JTA) – A judge in Jerusalem rejected a plea deal between prosecutors and Yona Metzger, a former Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel. Under the deal signed in January, Metzger pleaded guilty to fraud, breach of trust and tax offenses. The Jerusalem District Court judge sentenced Metzger to 4.5 years in jail, more than the…
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Opinion The Political Rabbi’s Survival Guide
On my desk, there is a small black and white photograph depicting the late Rabbi Arthur Lelyveld of Cleveland, his face bloody from a beating that he suffered at the hands of segregationists in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, during the Freedom Summer of 1964. It is now more than a half century later, and from what I…
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News Her Journey From Hasidic Rabbi To (Happy) Transgender Woman
Abby Stein is almost certainly the only ordained Hasidic rabbi who is also a woman. Stein wasn’t female when ordained, of course. She was a young man, soon to be married to a woman also from the strict Satmar community in which they were both raised. While Stein – then named Yisroel and nicknamed Srully…
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Life Orthodox Women Rabbis ‘Ruin’ Judaism — Really?
First I saw the headline: “Women Rabbis Ruin Judaism for All Women.” Then the bio, a photo and name confirming a woman author, Rahel Rocklin. The ensuing Times of Israel post was bound to be an odd one, but I could not have guessed how odd, or, rather, odd how. -It is an argument about…
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Opinion Criminal Intent: Why This Rabbi Went To Jail To Protest Trump
On Feb. 6, I was one of 19 rabbis to go to prison to protest the Trump administration’s recent restrictions on immigration and the acceptance of refugees. Organized by T’ruah: the Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, we were the largest group of rabbis to be arrested at one time in American history. Like many American…
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Fast Forward WATCH: Protesting Rabbis Get Arrested on Purpose Outside Trump Hotel
Eighteen rabbis were arrested on Monday night after sitting down in the street in front of New York’s Trump International Hotel in protest against President Donald Trump’s ban on refugees and immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries. Accompanied by hundreds of protesters, the march started on the Upper West Side and wended its way to the…
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Fast Forward It was a historic Jewish night at the Oscars. Why are so many Jews outraged?
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Film & TV Mikey Madison is Jewish — is ‘Anora’?
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Opinion The Germans have a word for what’s happening in Trump’s America
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Opinion Trump’s treasury secretary is about to make a catastrophically bad move on Israel
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Yiddish World Who was the audience for the rhyming Purim play?
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Fast Forward Adidas just sold off its final Yeezy shoe. Some of the proceeds are going to fight antisemitism.
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Fast Forward Cincinnati rabbi disinvited from rally against neo-Nazis over his support for Israel
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Opinion Trump should talk to anyone, anywhere, if it can save our hostages
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