This is the Forward’s coverage of rabbis, the spiritual leaders of Jewish congregations.
Rabbis
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Israel News Rabbis for Human Rights Splits From Israel Group
Rabbis for Human Rights North America, which began as a support group for the Israel-based Rabbis for Human Rights, is parting ways with its Israeli counterpart. In a January 15 press release, the North American group announced it will now be known as T’ruah: The Rabbinical Call for Human Rights, thereby ending organizational and fundraising…
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Fast Forward Ovadia Yosef, Sephardic Leader, Suffers Minor Stroke
An Israeli rabbi who is the spiritual head of a powerful ultra-Orthodox political party was taken to hospital with a suspected minor stroke on Saturday, 10 days before a general election. Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who has largely set the terms under which his Shas party has agreed to join a succession of governments, was taken…
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Fast Forward Hollande Meets With Chief Rabbi on Gay Marriage
French President Francois Hollande met with local religious leaders, including the country’s chief rabbi, Gilles Bernheim, to hear their views on same-sex marriages. Tuesday’s meeting at the Elysee Palace, the official presidential residence, was held days before a planned demonstration against a draft law unveiled in November by France’s Socialist government that would allow gay…
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News Nechemya Weberman’s Unique Band of Relatives
You think your family has issues? Consider the Weberman clan. Nechemya Weberman was convicted December 10 for child sexual abuse in a landmark case that underlined the massive support he enjoyed in the Satmar Hasidic community. But it turns out that he is just one high-profile member of a sprawling brood, whose diverse activities have…
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Fast Forward Former Chief Rabbi of Israel Is Charged With Fraud
Former Israeli Chief Rabbi Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron was charged with fraud for his alleged involvement in a scam that issued false rabbinic credentials to civil servants. It reportedly is the first time a chief rabbi has been charged with fraud. Other charged levied against him on Monday include attempted fraud and breach of trust. He is…
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Fast Forward Reform, Conservative Leaders Join Gun Control Call
Top rabbis from the Reform and Conservative movements will join an interfaith call for greater gun controls in the wake of last week’s school massacre in Connecticut. Rabbi David Saperstein, who directs the Reform movement’s Religious Action Center, and Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, who directs the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly, will appear at a press conference…
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News For Ephraim Mirvis, Big Shoes to Fill
Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis has big shoes to fill. Appointed this week as the 11th British chief rabbi, he will succeed Jonathan Sacks, an internationally renowned author and public intellectual who speaks frequently on moral, philosophical and theological affairs. The widespread assumption among British Jews has long been that a Mirvis chief rabbinate would be quite…
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News ‘Ub-u-sive’
Guilty on all 59 counts: guilty, guilty, guilty. On Monday, December 10, a jury of 12 found Nechemya Weberman enormously guilty. The jurors convicted him of sexually abusing an underage girl entrusted to his care. They declared the respected member of the ultra-Orthodox community to be a criminal and a fraud, and thousands of survivors,…
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Yiddish שפּילן מיט פֿײַל־און־בויגן און אַנדערע ל״ג־בעומר־מנהגיםPlaying with bows and arrows and other Lag BaOmer shtetl customs
געוויסע עקספּערטן האַלטן, אַז מע דאַרף באַטראַכטן ל״ג־בעומר ווי אַ פֿרילינגדיקן מײַ־פֿעסטיוואַל
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News ‘Don’t give up on us now’: Israel peace summit convenes thousands to aim for elusive progress
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Fast Forward A GOP lawmaker tried to put a Holocaust denier on New Hampshire’s Holocaust education board
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Fast Forward NH lawmaker reprimanded for ‘final solution’ joke aimed at Jewish colleague