Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of rabbis, the spiritual leaders of Jewish congregations.
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Opinion Want more Reform rabbis? Stop turning away Jews in interfaith relationships
The board of Hebrew Union College will soon vote on a proposal to stop enrolling rabbinic students at its Cincinnati campus, one of the Reform movement’s three North American rabbinical college locations. As revealed in publicly available papers and the proposal itself, enrollment across HUC’s three campuses is down 37% over the past 15 years….
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News Entering a third pandemic year, Jews see reasons to hope — and stay cautious
Julia Métraux, now 24, first started having severe fatigue and chronic pain about six years ago — symptoms that led to her eventual diagnosis with vasculitis, which involves inflammation of the blood vessels, in January 2018. She was hospitalized for a week and then bedridden for six months. Her medical needs made it necessary for…
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Fast Forward Chaim Kanievsky, haredi rabbi known as ‘Prince Of Torah,’ dies At 94
(JTA) — Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, the powerful leader of Israel’s haredi Orthodox community who was known as the “Prince of Torah,” has died. Kanievsky was 94 and died after collapsing at his home in Bnei Brak, the center of haredi life in Israel where he was regarded with reverence. The son of a major rabbi…
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News How a rabbi suspended for sexual misconduct can stay in the pulpit
Rabbi Jeremy Gerber acknowledged sexual transgressions. His synagogue decided to keep him.
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Letters We need a tenure system for American rabbis
Prior to heroically initiating the escape of three congregants and himself from the Jan. 15, 2022 hostage siege in Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, who had led the Reform temple for 15 years, was informed that his contract would not be renewed. In Oct. 2021, Rabbi Benjamin Goldschmidt, the assistant…
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News Rabbis warn Jews are ‘self-censoring’ on race, gender
Rabbis from more than 100 North American congregations have signed a letter decrying the exclusion of Jews whose views on race and gender fall to the right of the progressive mainstream. “The ascendency of an ideology that in its most simplistic form sees the world solely in binary terms of oppressed versus oppressor, and categorizes…
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Opinion Our Reform leaders sinned. Should we still sing songs they wrote?
Reform synagogues across the nation are struggling to make sense of the damning report released earlier this month showing nearly unfettered patterns of unwanted sexual contact between male faculty and female students at Hebrew Union College over five decades. Released on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, the report, conducted by an independent law firm, showed that…
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Fast Forward Andrew Cuomo questions investigators by calling Chuck Schumer their ‘rabbi’
In an attempt to discredit one of the investigators in his sexual assault inquiry, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo referred to Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, as his questioner’s “rabbi.” That’s according to the transcript released Wednesday by the office of state Attorney General Letitia James. In a contentious 10-hour interview under oath…
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Music In 1964, when he was just 23, Bob Dylan wrote the prophetic anthem that encapsulates Trump’s America
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News State Department plan to deport ‘pro-Hamas’ students relies on a 1952 law that targeted Jews
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Fast Forward What does the election of Mark Carney mean for Canadian Jews and Israel?
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News Jewish groups targeted Columbia grad Mahmoud Khalil — then ICE arrested him
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