Journalism by Jewish college students, for Jewish college students.
Just a few weeks ago, the White House released a video of President Obama wishing the American Jewish community a sweet New Year. Obama emphasized the importance of the newly-resumed peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians, as well as the responsibility of American Jews to act to bring an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Now…
This is the second in a two-part feature on recent changes in the Reconstructionist movement. For the first part, an interview with Rabbi Dan Ehrenkrantz, current president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, follow this link. The modern rabbi is vastly different from her traditional counterpart. In addition to the responsibilities of scholarship and leading meaningful liturgical…
The Forward’s Artist-in-Residence, Eli Valley just published a comic about a recent episode at Bnai Jeshurun, a non-denominational, liberal synagogue in New York City. The rabbis had sent out an email to their congregants praising the U.N. Palestinian vote, and then, after intense media coverage and mixed reactions from the community, they later apologized and…
Today’s Required Reading featured a recent story about the Rabbinical Assembly (Conservative Judaism), with controversy brewing over whether or not the RA was sponsoring a fair and equal number of female voices in an upcoming annual conference. While Conservative Judaism is by definition non-Orthodox, and seen as generally more open to the leadership of women…
If the Maya thought the world was going to end in 2012, some Jews seem to have a different opinion for the next few years ahead of us. One kabbalist rabbi says that G-d will “erase China from the world this year.” Why China, rather than Israel’s traditional antagonists? Possibly because China is an emergent…
Thanks, crooked ultra-Orthodox. You, with your flowing white beards, black velvet kippot, black coats and blacker hats, have shown the world that we Jews love laundering money through corrupt charities. You, who present yourself to the world as the platinum standard of our religion and culture, have branded us all with the stereotype we’ve been…