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News Reform Rabbi Was Secretly Censured For Affair With Congregant
When a Reform rabbi resigned from his Durham, North Carolina synagogue recently, the synagogue’s lawyer said the problem was “sexual in nature.” Now the Forward has learned what those words meant. The rabbi had a yearlong, sexual relationship with a woman who regularly worshipped at the synagogue. The Reform movement’s rabbinical association had censured him…
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Community Where Have All Of The Reform Synagogues Gone?
It was like entering my own personal Holy of Holies. That was how I felt this past weekend, as I visited the URJ Camp Eisner in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. The occasion: the wedding of the son of beloved friends, who themselves have become like family. But, on a deeper level, it was an act of…
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News Reform Group Knew About Complaints Against Rabbi, But Didn’t Tell His Synagogue
The Reform movement’s rabbinical association censured the rabbi of a Durham, North Carolina synagogue after receiving a complaint that was “sexual in nature,” but didn’t tell his congregation, spurring a watchdog group to demand that the movement be more forthcoming about accusations of sexual wrongdoing against its clergy. “It’s kind of shocking,” said Shulamit Magnus,…
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Fast Forward Reform Leader ‘Alarmed, Concerned And Profoundly Saddened’ By Gaza Deaths
(JTA) — Reform Jewish leader Rabbi Rick Jacobs said he was “alarmed, concerned and profoundly saddened” by the deaths of more than 50 Palestinian protesters on the Gaza border. “That Israel has the right, and even the obligation, to defend herself and her borders is beyond dispute,” Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism,…
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Fast Forward Reform Seminary Appoints Rabbi David Ellenson As Interim President
(JTA) — The Hebrew Union College — Jewish Institute of Religion appointed Rabbi David Ellenson to serve as interim president, following the death of Rabbi Aaron Panken in a plane crash earlier this month. On Monday, the Reform movement’s flagship seminary, said Ellenson would serve as interim president of its four campuses in New York, Jerusalem,…
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The Schmooze A Reform Floozy Attends A Chabad Young Professionals Shabbat: A Social Diary
I asked the Uber driver who took me to the “Shabbat 18,000: Chabad Young Professional Gala” to drop me off down the street. Night had fallen on the Upper East Side, and as I walked towards the security guards standing in front of the beautiful stone building I tried to tuck my cellphone into my…
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Fast Forward Jewish World Mourns Death of Rabbi Aaron Panken, Reform Seminary Leader
Jewish leaders from around the world are expressing their condolences on the passing of Rabbi Aaron Panken, the president of the Reform movement’s seminary system, who died in a plane crash in New York on Saturday. His death came less than a day before he was to officiate the ordination ceremony of new rabbis and…
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Fast Forward Rabbi Aaron Panken, Reform Seminary President, Killed In Plane Crash
(JTA) — Rabbi Aaron Panken, the president of Hebrew Union College, was killed piloting a small aircraft in the Hudson Valley area of New York state. MidHudson News reported that Panken crashed the plane in a wooded area in the Town of Wawayanda, near the New Jersey border. A passenger, Frank Reiss, a flight instructor,…
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