Opinion: How Occupy will end

Published on October 31, 2011

No one knows what difference Occupy Wall Street will turn out to make.

Video shows anti-Semitism at Occupy Wall Street protests

Published on October 16, 2011

Anti-Semitic and anti-Israel attacks during Occupy Wall Street protests in New York are shown in a video put out by a neo-Conservative political group.

For new Reform leader Richard Jacobs, big tent movement is the idea

Published on March 22, 2011

For the man tapped to lead American Jewry’s largest religious denomination, keeping the movement’s 900-plus synagogues welcoming to the unaffiliated, inspiring for members and a home for disaffected traditional Jews may require a high-wire balancing act. As a former dancer and choreographer, Rabbi Richard Jacobs may be just the guy.

Rabbi Richard Jacobs tapped to lead Reform movement

Published on March 22, 2011

Rabbi Richard Jacobs, the spiritual leader of the Westchester Reform Temple in Scarsdale, N.Y., is the choice to become the new leader of the Union for Reform Judaism. The selection of Jacobs to succeed Rabbi Eric Yoffie, who announced last year that he would be retiring in 2012 after 16 years at the helm of American Jewry’s largest religious movement, still requires formal approval by the union’s board of directors, which meets in June.

Reform looking at ways to reinvent the movement

Published on November 29, 2010

After the Reform movement broadcast online its first session devoted to reassessing itself, in mid-November, the comments poured in.

Is Reform movement going kosher?

Published on November 11, 2010

Kosher -- it’s the first word in the book. And tackling the “k” word head-on is part of what makes the first Reform guide to Jewish dietary practice so significant.

Leftist government’s moves worry Nicaraguan Jews

By Brian Harris
Published on March 8, 2007

During the Sandinista's regime, the country's synagogue, damaged in a 1978 fire, was converted into a secular school. It is being used now as a funeral home. The country's Torah remains in exile in Costa Rica.

In Search of a Leader

By Amy Klein
Published on October 6, 2005

It is only the second Rosh Hashanah for Ikar, a new congregation in Los Angeles, and some 600 people will be attending its services at the Westside Jewish Community Center.

Lay Leaders Keep Synagogues Going

By Sue Fishkoff
Published on September 8, 2005

During the week, Dr. David Kolinsky practices family medicine in Pacific Grove, a sleepy Northern California coastal town. But on Saturday mornings he dons his tallit and leads Shabbat services for Congregation B'nai Torah, a Conservative congregation in neighboring Monterey.

Kolinksy serves as spiritual leader and president of B'nai Torah, which has been lay led since it broke off from a nearby Reform temple 13 years ago.

Visiting rabbis have passed through, but with just 24 dues-paying members, there's no budget to hire even a student rabbi. The congregation also lacks a building -- it rents a small room in a local church, where it stores its two Torah scrolls and where, every Saturday morning, the stalwarts wait to see whether a minyan will show up.

Saving Zionism

By Leonard Fein
Published on August 11, 2005

Where Jewish terrorist Eden Natan-Zada lived -- first in Rishon L'Tzion, then evidently in Tapuach -- there is ostensibly an ideology that encourages the murders he committed last week in Shfaram.

Surgery Offers Hope to Dystonia Victims

By Nancy Sokoler Steiner
Published on June 9, 2005

By the time he had reached the fourth grade, Josh's dystonia caused his right hand to involuntarily clench into a fist so tight that he could only open it by force. His feet turned inward, requiring him to wear braces. The symptoms had forced Josh to quit his baseball and basketball teams after six years of playing, leaving him depressed and angry.

Rare Ailment Occurs More in Ashkenazis

By Nancy Sokoler Steiner
Published on June 9, 2005

After David Rudolph sprained his ankle during a basketball game, his father noticed that the second-grader couldn't seem to keep his left heel flat on the ground. The problem persisted, sidelining David from his position as catcher on his Little League team, and preventing him from progressing beyond his blue belt in karate.

Suicide bomb in Jerusalem kills 10

By Dina Kraft
Published on January 29, 2004

"How will I find anyone alive?" the 21-year-old
security guard asked as he broke down the door and climbed onto the charred
ruins of bus no. 19, stepping over body parts and choking on the smell of
burned flesh.

Settlers Struggle to Hold Biblical Israel

By Dina Kraft
Published on January 8, 2004

Migron, the largest and most established of the 100 or so illegal Jewish outposts set up across the West Bank, is on the front lines of a looming showdown between the settler movement and the Israeli government. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon recently pledged to dismantle such settlements in accordance with the U.S.-led "road map" peace plan.

Yoffie Emphasizes Need to Forge Links

By Joe Berkofsky
Published on November 13, 2003

Reform Jews cannot go it alone.

That was the message at the Reform movement's 67th biennial in Minneapolis last week.

Despite numerically dominating the North American Jewish landscape, Reform Jews must reach out to other Reform Jews in Israel and Eastern Europe and fight anti-Semitism by forging closer ties to Christians, said the movement's president, Rabbi Eric Yoffie.

Just a Peace Rally? Read the Fine Print

By David Finnigan
Published on September 25, 2003

This Sunday's "End Occupation" rally in Hollywood has led Jewish watchdog groups to be concerned about the increasing anti-Semitism of the antiwar movement.

For Love of the Dance

By Naomi Pfefferman
Published on September 11, 2003

If it seems unlikely that a nice Jewish girl would become a flamenco dancer, consider her early role models. Or Nili Azulay's Syrian-born grandmother, Nona, defied her parents to wed the man she loved, then refused to remarry after he died several years later. Azulay's mother, Chaya, became one of Israel's first female barristers; her father died when she was a small child. "The sadness of not having a father was tempered by growing up with these strong, independent women," she said.

IDF at Odds With Militant Activists

By Matthew Gutman
Published on April 17, 2003

The bad blood between the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and a group of international pro-Palestinian activists continues to grow as more members of the group are injured in Israeli anti-terror operations.

Wonderful

By Abby Gilad
Published on March 6, 2003

>This is what happens in this week's parsha. In Parshat Pekuday, Moses gives the Israelites an accounting of how much gold, silver and copper
was contributed to build the mishkan (the Tabernacle that held the Ten Commandments).

Room for   One More?

By Naomi Pfefferman
Published on February 20, 2003

Look out Pink, Avril and Christina: agent-manager Linda Yelnick is spearheading perhaps the first national movement to introduce a
Jewish music category in the Grammys.

Collaborating on Education

By Sharon Schatz Rosenthal
Published on February 13, 2003

Like college graduates looking to make career contacts, many of the professional and lay day school leaders, major philanthropists, Jewish Federation leaders and Jewish endowment fund representatives attending the PEJE Leadership Assembly portion, the first of its kind in the United States, took time out to network.

The Arafat Factor

By James D. Besser
Published on November 28, 2002

According to a poll released last week by Americans for Peace Now (APN) and the Arab American Institute (AAI), U.S. Jews continue to support an active Mideast peace process and a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians, despite two years of horrific terrorism and the bitter disappointment of a peace process turned sour.

Palestinian Supporters Gift-Wrap Message

By Rachel Pomerance
Published on October 17, 2002

In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the United States is considered Israel's last remaining key ally. Aiming to change that, the anti-Israel movement on college campuses has adopted a message rooted in bedrock American ideals.

‘My Judaism Is the Civilization’

By Eric Silver
Published on March 4, 1999

Amos Oz, Hebrew novelist, secular prophet and self-proclaimed "non-synagogue" Jew, has joined his local Reform congregation in Arad, the Negev desert town where he has lived since leaving Kibbutz Hulda a decade ago.