This is the Forward’s coverage of rabbis, the spiritual leaders of Jewish congregations.
Rabbis
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Fast Forward Rabbis and Imams Search for Common Ground as Donald Trump Looms Large
(JTA) — A year ago, when several dozen Washington-area Jewish and Muslim religious and lay leaders jostled for spots in a group picture, the mood was convivial. The most novel item on the agenda for that November 2015 confab was bringing in non-Middle Eastern Muslims into the Jewish-Muslim dialogue. The meeting and the venue —…
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Israel News New Jersey Family to Pay Rabbis Shunned by Israeli Rabbinate
(Ha’aretz) — If the state of Israel won’t pay the salaries of rabbis of certain denominations, then we will. That, in a nutshell, is how one family from Livingston, New Jersey, hopes to foment a religious revolution in Israel. By providing a living wage to rabbis who are not eligible for state funding – and…
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Fast Forward Chief Rabbis Promise Conversion Standards — Vow To Count Ivanka Trump as Jewish
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel’s Chief Rabbinate committed to creating standards for recognizing which Diaspora rabbis it trusts to handle Jewish conversions. The Ashkenazi and Sephardi chief rabbis announced separately Wednesday afternoon that they would convene a meeting next week with the Chief Rabbinate Council and the Supreme Rabbinical Court to determine the standards. The conversion…
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Culture On Cult German Show, Real Rabbi Officiates TV Bar Mitzvah
If you walk through a German-speaking town next Sunday night, the odds are that the streets will literally be empty as people stay at home to watch a bar mitzvah on TV. For Germans and Austrians like me, “Tatort” (“Crime Scene”) is the holy grail of television. It’s the German equivalent of “Game of Thrones,”…
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News ‘Alt Right’ Leader Ties White Supremacy to Zionism — Leaves Rabbi Speechless
A prominent leader of the “alt-right” left a Hillel rabbi speechless when he drew a direct parallel between white supremacy and Zionism — igniting debate on social media about whether such a comparison has any validity. Richard Spencer, who leads the white nationalist National Policy Institute, appeared at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas on…
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The Schmooze WATCH: When 4,000 Rabbis Epically Fail To Stand Still for the #MannequinChallenge
4,000 rabbis attempted the #MannequinChallenge in Brooklyn, NY this week — to varying degrees of success. For those who’ve missed this whole viral phenomenon, the challenge involves a group of people standing frozen in one position while a camera pans across the scene. The rabbis, gathered together for the annual Chabad-Lubavitch conference, stood in a…
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Fast Forward Rabbi Says Couples Can’t Live Together If Marriage Licenses Destroyed by Wildfires
JERUSALEM — The chief rabbi of an area affected by the wildfires that cut across Israel said couples whose marriage licenses were destroyed in the blazes cannot live together until they draw up a new one. Rabbi Mordechai Abramovski of Zichron Yaakov said in an interview with the haredi Orthodox news website Kikar HaShabbat that…
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Fast Forward IDF Chief Rabbi Nominee Says He Never Excused Wartime Rape
JERUSALEM — The nominee for chief rabbi of the Israel Defense Forces said in a deposition that he never believed rape during wartime is acceptable. Rabbi Col. Eyal Karim submitted a deposition on Wednesday to the Supreme Court, which had suspended his appointment and ordered him to clarify comments he had made a decade earlier that…
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Opinion This German word explains Trump’s authoritarian impulses — and Hitler’s rise to power
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Opinion I’m a Zionist Democrat. Mamdani has me asking if I must choose between my ideals and identity
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Fast Forward A cholent crisis? Rabbi’s ruling against Shabbat stew on Thursday nights briefly roils Israel
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Fast Forward In a Polish town where locals burned Jews alive in 1941, new plaques deny complicity with Nazis
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