Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of rabbis, the spiritual leaders of Jewish congregations.
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Fast Forward Black Rabbinical Student Leads Chicago Push Against Gun Violence
(JTA) — The same week Tamar Manasseh’s African-American son was going to become a bar mitzvah, gang violence killed two 13-year-old black boys who were also from Chicago’s South Side. As she picked out the bar mitzvah suit for her son, Manasseh couldn’t shake the image of the slain boys’ mothers, who were likely also…
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Fast Forward 7-Year-Old French Rabbi’s Son Killed by Crane on Way Home From Synagogue
— The 7-year-old son of a rabbi from the Paris area was hit by a truck-mounted crane and killed while walking home from his synagogue. Shmuel Sarfati was declared dead approximately 20 minutes after he was hit in the head by the crane Monday in the northeastern Paris suburb of Poissy, the news site 78actu reported….
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Fast Forward 250 Female Rabbis Condemn Donald Trump for ‘Hate Speech’
— More than 250 female rabbis from around the world signed a letter condemning what they called “hate speech” on the part of Donald Trump. “He has denigrated people by race, by nationality, by their gender and by their most intimate, personal challenges,” the message reads. “His callous descriptions of uninvited physical contact and even sexual…
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Fast Forward Top Reform Rabbi Blasts Donald Trump for ‘Anti-Semitic’ Rhetoric
WASHINGTON — A top Reform movement rabbi said it “defies belief” that Donald Trump is unaware of anti-Semitic associations in his campaign rhetoric. Rabbi Jonah Pesner, who directs the Reform movement’s Religious Action Center, released his statement Friday, Oct. 14, a day after the Republican presidential nominee delivered a speech in West Palm Beach, Florida,…
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Fast Forward Dutch Chief Rabbi Decries Planned Euthanasia Laws For Healthy People
AMSTERDAM — Dutch Chief Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs urged his country’s government to drop plans to legalize assisted suicide for healthy individuals. Jacobs was reacting to a statement made earlier this week in the Tweede Kamer, the Dutch lower house, by the country’s health minister announcing planned legislation designed to broaden existing laws on assisted suicide…
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Community WATCH: In Israel, Civil Marriage Is Only a Cruise Away
Eight years ago I got married in the little town of Wagoner, Oklahoma. It was my first time in the US. My wife Katie and I were living in Israel at the time, young and in love, and were ready to tie the knot. There was one problem – I am Jewish and she isn’t….
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News Will French Chief Rabbi’s Death Heal Split Over Gays?
Joseph Sitruk, the former chief rabbi of France who died in September, was a towering figure to his country’s Jewish community. Serving for two decades — between 1987 and 2008 — in the top clerical post, the Tunisian-born Sitruk gained a reputation for his charisma, friendliness to Orthodox and Sephardic teachings and engagement with the…
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Fast Forward Israel Chief Rabbi Pushes for Acceptance of American Rabbi’s Conversions
— Israeli Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi David Lau sent a letter urging a midlevel bureaucrat in the Chief Rabbinate to accept conversions certified by the head of a prominent American Orthodox rabbinical court. Lau “asked me to clarify to you once more that his position is to recognize the certifications given from the Beth Din of America and signed…
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