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Opinion Report From the Road: Can America’s Squabbling Jews Still Listen to Each Other?
A bitter wind is coursing through the corridors and alleyways of American Jewry. Across the country, wherever they gather, Jews seem anxious and afraid. They’re afraid for America. They’re afraid for Israel. And, to an alarming degree, they’re afraid of each other. That’s the impression I’m left with after visiting Jewish communities in about two…
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Letters Letter to the Editor: Jared Kushner Reveals The Fissures In American Judaism
In his recent column in the Forward (“How Could Modern Orthodox Judaism Produce Jared Kushner?” ) Beinart examines Jared’s recent, little-more-than-a-week long record as a member of the Trump administration. He looks at what the administration has thus far produced, and how Jared has stood by and watched it happen. In Beinart’s telling, Jared is…
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Community Are We Praying Against Trump?
Some American Jews may now find themselves in a largely unprecedented predicament: that of praying against their own government. It is well known among synagogue goers that there is a prayer for the U.S. government in most prayer books, recited on Shabbat after the Torah service (usually followed by a prayer for the welfare of…
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Fast Forward Rabbi Herman Schaalman, Oldest Reform Rabbi, Dies at 100
(JTA) — Rabbi Herman Schaalman, who was the oldest living Reform rabbi, has died at the age of 100. Schaalman, a leader in the Reform movement for seven decades, died on Tuesday, according to the Union for Reform Judaism. He served a small congregation in Iowa before moving to Chicago to become the Midwest…
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Fast Forward Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, Recon Movements Denounce ‘Muslim Ban’
(JTA) — Two large groups representing Orthodox Jews responded to President Donald Trump’s executive order barring migrants from seven mostly Muslim countries and refugees from around the world by warning against policies that would place any limits on immigration based on religion. With the combined statement by the Orthodox Union and Rabbinical Council of America, all…
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News How a Small Mississippi Town Helped Build Reform Judaism
Reform Judaism, America’s largest denominational stream, boasts some 900 congregations in America, including some with thousands of member families. So what possessed Rabbi David Ellenson, the renowned scholar and then-president of Reform Judaism’s Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, to travel to tiny Temple Beth El, in Lexington, Mississippi, — population 2,000 — for that…
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Fast Forward As Betsy DeVos Faces Confirmation, Jews Split Over Education Agenda
WASHINGTON (JTA) — An Orthodox Jewish umbrella group urged the Senate to confirm Betsy DeVos as education secretary and another expressed enthusiasm for her agenda, while the Reform movement expressed concerns about her support for government funding of religious schools. Agudath Israel of America said in a letter Tuesday to the Senate Education Committee as it…
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Fast Forward Orthodox Synagogue Visits Selma Reform Temple to Honor MLK
(JTA) — More than 100 members of the Orthodox National Synagogue in Washington DC traveled to Selma, Alabama, to visit the historic Reform Temple Mishkan Israel. The Reform temple in Selma only has seven remaining members, according to the Montgomery Advertiser. Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld of the Orthodox National Synagogue said the purpose of the group’s visit…
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Fast Forward Antisemitic incidents on college campuses rose over 80 percent last year, says the ADL
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Fast Forward Jewish Federations CEO privately opposed a Jewish open letter criticizing Trump’s campus arrests
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