Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of Reform Judaism, a major liberal Jewish denomination.
Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of Reform Judaism, a major liberal Jewish denomination.
Reform Judaism
The Latest
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Opinion Religious Freedom for Israelis, Too
I am the son of a Yekke. My father was born in Germany. His parents escaped to Palestine in the nick of time, just before World War II broke out. Both were doctors, but they came with no Hebrew and there was no work for them. It was tough. They may have left Germany behind…
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Opinion Beyond Gee-Whiz Figures in Population Study
Most of the conversation surrounding that new survey of New York’s Jewish population, released in early June by UJA-Federation of New York, has been focused on its two big, gee-whiz numbers: the one-third of Jews in the region (40% in New York City proper) who are Orthodox and the 20% who are poor. It’s understandable…
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News Nod to Change as Jacobs Takes URJ Reins
Rabbi Rick Jacobs designed the ceremony that installed him as president of the Union for Reform Judaism to broadcast his vision of what the Reform movement — the largest denomination in American Jewish life — should be. Rabbis and cantors led songs by Orthodox Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach and by Reform folksinger Debbie Friedman at the…
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Opinion Separate Synagogue and State
They didn’t exactly turn handsprings, but their cheering was unmistakable. “This is a historic day for Israelis and Jews around the world,” proclaimed Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, executive vice president of the Conservative Rabbinical Assembly. The head of Israel’s Reform movement, Rabbi Gilad Kariv, declared that the decision is “an important breakthrough in the effort to…
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Culture Rabbinic Sister Act
There have been countless examples throughout Jewish history of children following parents into the rabbinate. There have even been instances in which two or more siblings, especially male ones, have chosen to become rabbis. But a family in which all three daughters get ordained? There have been no documented cases — until now. The Reform…
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Opinion The Lessons of Jewish Pluralism
The assertiveness of Israel’s ultra-Orthodox religious authorities over the country’s social life — and particularly over the role of women in the public square — has generated headlines and condemnation on the part of friends of Israel and, gleefully, from the country’s antagonists and enemies. These developments, and the potentially disastrous ever increasing growth in…
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News Patrilineal Jews Still Find Resistance
Rachel Brook, a 29-year-old vocalist living in Brooklyn, was born to a Jewish Israeli father and a non-Jewish mother. After her parents divorced when she was 3, Brook was raised by her father as a Jew in a Reform synagogue. Last year, she decided to apply to cantorial school at the Academy for Jewish Religion,…
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Opinion Abusing Tikkun Olam
Google “tikkun olam” together with “same-sex marriage,” “global warming” or “abortion,” and you’ll get tens of thousands of hits. Yet in these many, many instances, “tikkun olam” is being invoked by Jewish groups or Jews in two ways that disconnect it from its true meaning. First, the original and entire phrase is “tikkun olam b’malchut…
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Opinion The group behind Project 2025 has a plan to protect Jews. It will do the opposite.
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Film & TV Bonhoeffer biopic tells of a pastor turned would-be Hitler assassin — but is the story true?
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News Texas schools want to add Queen Esther to the curriculum. Here’s why Jews (and many Christians) are opposed.
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News What Mike Huckabee’s ‘Kids Guide to Israel’ says about his views
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