What the Incoming President of the URJ Thinks about Chabad

By Ben Sales March 23, 2011

Rabbi Richard Jacobs, the spiritual leader of a large Reform congregation in Scarsdale, NY, was just tapped to lead the Union for Reform Judaism next year–effectively making him the top rabbi of America’s largest denomination. According to the JTA, Rabbi Jacobs wants to make the movement a “big tent with its flaps wide open and…

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A bomb explodes in Jerusalem.

By hdilman March 23, 2011

I was sitting in the Ministry of the Interior office in the center of town in Jerusalem, I was applying for my Israeli passport.  I was sucked into a fairly successful game of angry birds on my ipod.  I looked up, the “take a number” board listed 32, only 10 more numbers until it was my turn….

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When Esther Met Frank-N-Furter

By akinman March 23, 2011

Halloween gives you candy. Purim gives you Hamantaschens. After slowly recovering from the ODing on poppy seed hamantaschens, and getting the noise of groggers out of my head, I look back on this past Purim and describe it in one word: scandalous. Every year, my congregation puts on a Purim Spiel. The play tells the…

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A Potential Death in the (Language) Family

By mmoncaster March 23, 2011

I admittedly know little about Yiddish. My great-grandmother spoke it. My grandma can understand it. I used to get called a chazer (pig) on account of my messy room. But I had to pause when I saw this interview with K. David Harrison. A linguistics professor at Swarthmore College, he had this to say about…

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