This is the Forward’s coverage of rabbis, the spiritual leaders of Jewish congregations.
Rabbis
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News Marc Gafni Defends Return to Spotlight as Backlash Gathers Steam
Marc Gafni, a once-promising Jewish leader dogged by allegations of sexual improprieties stretching back years, has returned to the public eye as a leader of a California think tank. But his stunning re-emergence, trumpeted in a recent New York Times article, has elicited a new wave of condemnations from Jewish leaders. Rabbi David Ingber, an…
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Life First Woman Orthodox ‘Rabbi’ Is Hired by Synagogue
The first graduate of Yeshivat Maharat to take the title “rabbi” said she has been hired by an unnamed American Orthodox synagogue. Lila Kagedan, who was ordained this summer by the seminary created by Open Orthodox Rabbi Avi Weiss to train Orthodox female clergy, told the London-based Jewish Chronicle this week that she was recruited…
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News Reconstructionist Synagogue Rebels Against Allowing Intermarried Rabbis
In September, the Reconstructionist movement adopted a policy that was as groundbreaking as it was controversial: Henceforth, the movement stated, it would ordain students in its rabbinical seminary who were in interfaith relationships. Now, the first signs of discontent are beginning to appear, as a Florida congregation prepares to vote on January 18 on dropping…
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Opinion How Jewish Leaders Can Keep the LGBT Debate Honest
A funny thing is happening in Jacksonville, Florida. In the wake of one of the most dishonest civil rights debates in recent memory — Houston’s cash-soaked, lie-filled controversy over whether to expand its human rights ordinance to protect LGBT people from discrimination — the city of Jacksonville has taken a different route. They’re talking honestly…
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Life Five Events in 2015 That Changed Jewish Women
It’s been a big year for Jewish women. Comic Amy Schumer catapulted to super stardom with “Trainwreck,” and drew our attention to the way women are treated in Hollywood; Tamar Epstein, whose fight to receive a religious divorce from her husband Aharon Friedman made national headlines, remarried despite never receiving a get; and Emma Sulkowicz…
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Fast Forward Rabbis Tell Israeli Mom: You’re Not Jewish — After 30 Years
An Israeli mother whom a rabbinical court declared to be not Jewish said in an appeal that the judges failed to satisfactorily explain their unusual decision. Sarit Azoulay’s appeal, which she filed this month with the High Rabbinical Court, concerns a 2012 ruling by the Jerusalem Rabbinical Court that nullified her mother’s 1983 conversion to…
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Life Israel’s Voiding of Conversions Should Worry Us All
For at least the past seven years or so, the State of Israel has been subjecting converts to intense examinations and inquiries regarding the level of their religious observance. When a convert requests that a rabbinic court administer a get in the context of an amicable divorce, rabbinic judges will surreptitiously cross-examine the convert: Did…
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Life A New, Sophisticated Haredi View on Gender
Recent debates about women and the Orthodox rabbinate yielded a range of interesting, impassioned and also banal observations by various Jewish professionals and laypeople. Although sociological and legal arguments abound, a broader philosophical discussion of the nature of gender roles within Judaism is lacking. The assumption in these debates seems to be that the challenge…
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Music ‘No matter what, I will always be a Jew.’ Billy Joel opens up about his family’s Holocaust history
In Case You Missed It
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Fast Forward How the Jewish commandment to ‘be fruitful and multiply’ could help a woman challenge Kentucky’s abortion ban in court
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Yiddish ווידעאָ: יוטוב־פּערזענלעכקייט רעדט אויף ייִדיש וועגן אַ משפּחה־טראַגעדיעVIDEO: Youtube personality speaks in Yiddish about a tragedy in the family
מאַטי מענדלאָוויטשעס ברודער, וואָס האָט יאָרן לאַנג געליטן פֿון דעפּרעסיע, האָט הײַיאָר זיך גענומען דאָס לעבן. .
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Music Can 6 hours of Billy Joel turn critics into believers?
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Opinion What exactly is going on between Israel and Syria — and is the prospect of peace dead?
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