This is the Forward’s coverage of rabbis, the spiritual leaders of Jewish congregations.
Rabbis
The Latest
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Opinion On Women Rabbis, We All Talk Past Each Other. Here’s Why.
Since the Rabbinical Council of America voted to pass a resolution opposing any sort of ordination for women in the Orthodox world, Jews of all denominations have been talking past each other. For some, the granting of ordination to women and their hiring as clergy are developments not only long overdue, but also sensible, fair…
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Fast Forward Chief Rabbi’s Mausoleum Torched in Ukraine
A Jewish mausoleum in western Ukraine burned down in what a human rights group said may have been a deliberate arson attack connected with a dispute over a commemoration project. The gravesite of Hillel Lichtenstein, a 19th century Jewish sage and former chief rabbi of the Ukrainian city of Kolomyia, was partially destroyed last week…
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Forward 50 2015 Deborah Waxman
In the long communal discussion over how to relate to Jews who marry non-Jews, those in the “be welcoming” camp won a major battle this year, thanks in large part to Rabbi Deborah Waxman. Waxman is president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Seminary, which, after more than a year of deliberation, decided in a September faculty…
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Fast Forward Jewish Extremist Arrested in Attack on Rabbi in West Bank
Israel Police have arrested a Jewish man accused of assaulting a leader of the Rabbis for Human Rights organization. Police on Sunday arrested the man who last month threatened Rabbi Arik Ascherman with a knife while he was helping Palestinians harvest olives near the settlement of Itamar, not far from the West Bank city of…
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Opinion Orthodox Women Should Thank Feminists Who Came Before — But They Won’t
I’ll begin by saying this. I’m really excited at the idea that Modern Orthodox women leaders, some of them friends of mine, are getting support pouring in from all corners of the Jewish world. Well, maybe not all, but many. This includes the CCAR, the umbrella organization for Reform rabbis. It is truly inspiring. So…
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Opinion Why All Jews Should Speak Out About Orthodox Ban on Women Rabbis
(UPDATED) When mainstream Orthodox rabbis repeated their absolute opposition to ordaining women, in a statement issued late on the afternoon of Friday, October 30, I found that my predictable feminist outrage was tempered by an unpredictable shrug. Really, why should I care about what the Rabbinical Council of America says, anyway? I am not an…
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Fast Forward Orthodox Rabbis Group Chooses Confrontation in Feud Over Female Clergy
(JTA) — When America’s main modern Orthodox rabbinical association voted last week to ban the hiring of clergywomen by its members, the question wasn’t whether to endorse women rabbis. It was whether to widen the group’s well-established repudiation of female clergy or keep quiet and focus on finding common ground with modern Orthodox Judaism’s progressive…
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News When Reform Leaders Downplay Charges of Rabbis Behaving Badly
Rabbi Eric Siroka was quietly expelled from the nation’s leading association for Reform rabbis, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, this past spring. At the time, the CCAR said only that Siroka had been expelled for refusing to comply with an ethics investigation. By then, Siroka, a married father with two children, had moved to…
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