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,…
The Forward has learned that on Friday night, thirteen Democratic Senators—including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren—sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urging the Trump administration “to do more to alleviate the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.” That may not sound particularly audacious. But according to J Street’s Vice President of…
In the past few days, we have come closer than we have in some time to touching the core issues that drive the conflict between Israelis, Palestinians, and the wider Arab and Islamic world. After decades of discussing “territories,” “borders,” “settlements,” “two states” and “occupation,” and lamenting the lack of trust between the sides and…
We have a race problem here in the U.S. Almost daily, we hear of cops being called on African Americans for taking a nap, waiting in a store, grilling in the park, buying shampoo, or playing golf too slowly. But the problem goes much deeper than unchecked racial bias. We tolerate a system that robs…
Pops: Fatherhood In Pieces By Michael Chabon HarperCollins, 144 pages, $19.99 “You can write great books,” a writer, a “great man,” once told Michael Chabon at a party on the Truckee River, “or you can have kids. It’s up to you.” That’s an interesting sentiment, though I found myself wondering who this “great man” was….
The Supreme Court has overturned a federal ban on state-authorized gambling on sporting events, thus reopening the door to a profession that has long boasted its fair share of Jewish participants, some legendary in the field. The likes of Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel, of course, were instrumental in organizing gambling on a host of…
For the past six weeks, social media has been ablaze with the spectacle of thousands of Palestinians moving towards the border fence separating the Gaza Strip and Israel. Departing from six separate tent encampments built a few hundred meters from the border, the “Great Return March” has led to violent clashes, the loss of lives,…
Judge Rachel (“Ruchie”) Freier, 52, is the only Hasidic woman judge in the world. She knows she’s an anomaly, and yet she sees nothing contradictory between her deeply held religious beliefs and her high-powered, secular career. “People always make a big deal that I’m the first Hasidic woman judge, but my husband [mortgage broker David…
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