Jewish Religion

Despite heckles, pluralistic services at Western Wall pass ‘quietly’

Conservative and Reform Jews held a mixed-gender egalitarian service at the Western Wall plaza on Thursday amid jeering from a handful of protesters but few other disturbances. The organizers said they complied with an attorney general order not to pray at the site and held a singing and dancing service instead. “It passed totally quietly,” […]

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Jewish Religion, Middle East

Rejecting Rabbi Lookstein, who converted Ivanka Trump, ‘delegitimizes’ Israel, says Sharansky at protest

Strains of the Israeli national anthem “Hatikvah” overpowered the sounds of morning rush hour as some 200 protesters demonstrated outside the Supreme Rabbinical Court at the entrance to Jerusalem on Wednesday morning. The protest was organized by former students of New York Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, the former principal of the Ramaz High School and spiritual

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Jewish Religion, Middle East, USA

Graduate of one-year rabbinical program leads services on the web

NEW YORK (Press Release)–As a scientist, educator, and one of seven children raised in a close African American Jewish family in upstate New York, Rabbi Deborah McKenzie fulfills her childhood dream to become a spiritual leader, and shepherds summer Ma’ariv Monday services for Sim Shalom, the online synagogue, to refresh spirituality each week.  (Sim Shalom

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Jewish Religion, USA

Chief Rabbi Lau: Ivanka Trump conversion legitimate

The brouhaha surrounding the recognition of Ivanka Trump’s conversion to Judaism by Israel may be nearing it’s end. Trump, the daughter of US presidential candidate Donald Trump, converted to Judaism under the auspices of Orthodox Rabbi Haskel Lookstein. Recently, it was announced that a Rabbinical Court in Israel had ruled that Rabbi Lookstein’s conversions are

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Jewish Religion, Middle East, USA

‘Bad Jews’ depicts split between religious and secular

By Cynthia Citron HOLLYWOOD — The play has such a despicable name that you would think it would attract every neo-Nazi, Aryan Nation, Skinheaded anti-Semite in southern California.  The play is called Bad Jews.  But, surprisingly, playwright Joshua Harmon’s four-person diatribe is actually a perceptive reflection of the way in which many modern Jews relate

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Cynthia Citron, Jewish Religion, Theatre, Film & Broadcast

Belgian court rules shechita bans unconstitutional

A constitutional court in Belgium ruled on Wednesday that traditional Jewish shechita is permitted under Belgian law and will be allowed to continue unimpeded. “Restrictions on kosher shechita”, the judge ruled, “contradict basic human rights laws and religious rights in Belgium.” In recent months some members of the Flemish parliament have proposed bans on kosher

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International, Jewish Religion

Biography of Nehemiah prompts mixed emotions

Nehemiah: Statesman and Sage by Dov S. Zakheim; Maggid Books © 2016; ISBN 9781592-643691; 246 pages including appendices; $27.95 By Donald H. Harrison SAN DIEGO – From the standpoint of one in whose family there have been several intermarriages in which the children have been raised as Reform Jews, I read this biography of the

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Jewish Religion

Jews receive official minority status in Maharashtra

MUMBAI, India (JNS.org) — The Indian state of Maharashtra has become the second Indian state to grant official minority status to its Jewish community, which contains about 3,000 of the approximately 4,500 Jews who live in all of India. Among other new state benefits for Maharashtra’s Jews, the ruling means that those Jews will join

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International, Jewish Religion