This is the Forward’s coverage of rabbis, the spiritual leaders of Jewish congregations.
Rabbis
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Fast Forward Pluralism Advocates Seek State Funding for Non-Orthodox in Israel
(JTA) — At 3:30 Shavuot morning, more than 100 people are seated on folding chairs singing in Yiddish as men walk around with shots of vodka and cups of coffee. Up front, a man in a black frock coat and black hat is belting out the notes, his eyes closed. Except for the live instruments…
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Fast Forward Krakow Chief Rabbi Irks Many Poles With ‘Don’t Like Jews’ Remark
(JTA) — On the way to his first appearance as Krakow’s new chief rabbi, Eliezer Gurary passed a group of young demonstrators holding signs with messages of affection for Jews. “I [heart] Jews,” one sign read. “Yes to tolerance,” read another. But the demonstration last week outside Krakow’s Old Synagogue was no support rally. Organized…
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Fast Forward French Jews Elect Haim Korsia as New Chief Rabbi
The Jewish community of France elected Rabbi Haim Korsia, the French army’s Jewish chaplain, as its new chief rabbi. Korsia, 51, defeated Rabbi Olivier Kaufmann, an interim chief rabbi, in a 131-97 vote on Sunday to win the seven-year term, the French news agency AFP reported. Kaufmann, the head of a French rabbinical school, was…
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Fast Forward South African Rabbi Steps Down Over $4K Blackmail of Other Rabbi
A South African rabbi was jailed and resigned from his synagogue after attempting to blackmail another rabbi. Cape Town Rabbi Bryan Opert stepped down from the Milnerton Hebrew Congregation and was jailed for 48 hours after trying to blackmail Rabbi Ruben Suiza, the longtime head of the city’s Sephardic community, Haaretz reported. The case was…
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Opinion The Rebbe’s Big Idea
(JTA) — Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe, was inarguably the most well-known rabbi since Moses Maimonides. Hundreds of prominent rabbinic figures have lived in the intervening 800 years since Maimonides died. But how many can be named before an audience of Jews from the United States, Israel, France or the former Soviet…
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Fast Forward 4,000 Moscow Jews Fete Russia Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar on 50th Birthday
Approximately 4,000 Jews attended Moscow’s first “Festival of Judaism” which organizers planned as a celebration of the 50th birthday of Chief Russian Rabbi Berel Lazar. The festival was held on June 8, two days after Lazar’s birthday, at the Jewish Museum And Tolerance Center in Moscow and featured 50 stations where staff and volunteers presented…
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Fast Forward Rabbi vs. Rabbi Blackmail Case Rocks South Africa
A bizarre case of blackmail by one rabbi on another has come to light in Cape Town, South Africa, according to the Afrikaans-language newspaper Rapport. The incident came to light at the end of April, when an emissary picked up a bag from Debra Suiza, the wife Rabbi Ruben Suiza, 61, head of Cape Town’s…
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Fast Forward Chabad Rabbi on Scooter Chases Down Burglary Suspect in Palm Beach
A rabbi rode a motor scooter to chased down a suspected burglar after spotting him outside of a Palm Beach, Florida Chabad house. Avrohom Ezagui, a Lubavitcher rabbi, became suspicious when he saw a man holding a bag of valuables, according to The Palm Beach Post. Ezagui assumed the valuables had been taken from Chabad…
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