This is the Forward’s coverage of rabbis, the spiritual leaders of Jewish congregations.
Rabbis
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Fast Forward New Jersey Synagogue Reveals It Hired First Orthodox Woman ‘Rabbi’
An Orthodox synagogue in New Jersey has hired Lila Kagedan, the first Yeshivat Maharat graduate to go by the title “rabbi.” Mount Freedom Jewish Center, in Randolph, New Jersey, announced in a news release Monday that Kagedan is joining its “spiritual leadership team.” The news release did not use the word “rabbi,” instead referring to…
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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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Holy Ground A Millennial rabbi built a synagogue where others have closed. Her maverick ideas are becoming a model.
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News Why Josh Shapiro’s memoir could complicate a presidential run
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