Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of rabbis, the spiritual leaders of Jewish congregations.
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News Reconstructionists Shake Up Boring Annual Report With Web, Video — and Even a Christian!
The Reconstructionist Rabbinical College has released what may be the quirkiest annual report in the mundane history of Jewish annual reports. Instead of the standard-issue PDF, chock full of corny staged photos and tritely colored financial bar graphs, the RRC built its 2015 report into an interactive website that captures the democratic essence of the…
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Fast Forward Shlomo Riskin Controversy Bares New Feud for Israel Rabbinate
(JTA) — There’s no shortage of Israelis who want to reform the office of the Chief Rabbinate. Ranging from advocates of religion-state separation to leaders of Israel’s non-Orthodox movements to newspaper columnists, some want to end the Rabbinate’s monopoly over the country’s religious services; others want to dissolve it entirely. But this week, the Rabbinate…
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Life How Israel’s New Coalition Agreement Affects the Rabbinate
Israeli Rabbinical Court Judges, in accordance with Orthodox tradition, are all men. These Judges wield enormous power, in accordance with Israeli civil law, granted to them by the Knesset. The law states that Israeli State Rabbinical Courts have sole jurisdiction in determining the fate of all of Israel’s residents who are Jewish or wish to…
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Fast Forward Shlomo Riskin Vows To Defy Rabbinate
Rabbi Shlomo Riskin said that, should Israel’s Chief Rabbinate dismiss him as chief rabbi of Efrat, he would not accept the decision. Speaking to JTA Tuesday, Riskin also said that the Chief Rabbinate does not have the support of the vast majority of Israelis for its conversion policy. Riskin urged the rabbinate to accept a…
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Fast Forward Rabbis Warned Over Bias Against Ethiopians
Israel’s newly-appointed Religious Services Minister said he would void the marriage authority of municipal rabbinates if they are found to be discriminating against Ethiopian Jews. David Azoulay of the Orthodox Shas party spoke interview Thursday with Army Radio, following the station’s report about alleged delays by the rabbinate of Petach Tikva near Tel Aviv in…
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Opinion How Should a Rabbi Talk About Israel?
What should a rabbinic voice on Israel sound like? How ought religious leaders speak – among themselves, within their communities, out in the world – about the divisions and conflicts, the difficult issues that Israel faces, the challenges that she presents, as well as the good news? A number of premises underlie my questions. Rabbinic…
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Fast Forward Rabbi Barry Starr Wore Dress for Online Tryst
A prominent Boston rabbi was indicted for embezzlement and larceny for stealing money from his temple to pay off a man who was blackmailing the rabbi for his supposed affair with a teenage male. Rabbi Barry Starr, who resigned a year ago from Temple Israel, a Conservative synagogue in Sharon, Massachusetts, allegedly became entangled in…
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The Schmooze There’s a Jewish Cemetery Hidden Inside a GM Plant
General Motors, home to the Corvette, the Camaro, the Cadillac — and a Jewish cemetery? According to , nearly 1,100 souls can claim a resting place in a 2.2 acre plot of land, surrounded on all sides by General Motors Co.’s Detroit Hamtramck Plant. Beth Olem Cemetery has been around for roughly 155 years, and was…
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Opinion I’m a rabbi. Here’s why I’m boycotting the megillah reading for Purim this year
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News ‘Nobody can protect you,’ Columbia dean warns foreign students after Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest
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Fast Forward Is Israel about to make peace with Lebanon?
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