Unifying the country requires reaching out to those with whom you disagree. That’s what a couple of top Jewish leaders are saying about Barack Obama’s choice of Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his swearing-in next month. Others in the community, however, say the president-elect’s choice is a disappointing kickoff to his administration. Critics… More ▸
On the evening of May 27, 2002, a Palestinian terrorist walked into an ice cream parlor in the central Israeli city of Petach Tikvah and detonated the explosives strapped to his chest. More than 30 Israelis were wounded in the attack. Two lives were claimed: 18-month-old Sinai Keinan and her 56-year-old grandmother, Ruti Peled. Even… More ▸
Rabbi Emanuel Rackman, a leading Orthodox thinker and an early champion of women’s rights, died Monday in New York. He was 98. Tributes poured in from around the world this week, many of them praising Rackman for being an Orthodox pioneer in trying to ease the plight of agunot — women whose recalcitrant husbands denied… More ▸
The outgoing leader of one of the country’s largest Jewish federations will head the Birthright Israel Foundation, the foundation announced. Robert Aronson, who announced this fall that he was stepping down as the CEO of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit after 20 years at its helm, will take over as president and CEO of… More ▸
Philanthropist E. Billi Ivry dies at 102 E. Billi Ivry, a personal secretary turned stock broker and a major philanthropist, died at 102. Born in 1906 in Grajevo, Lithuania, now Poland, Ivry was the youngest of nine children of Israel and Rebecca Ivry. Her father was in the lumber business in Europe and was a… More ▸
Eng, Taddeo defeated A Chinese-American Jew and a Jewish Latina woman both lost their congressional bids. Democrat Hank Eng, a recent convert to Judaism, was defeated by Colorado Secretary of State Mike Coffman, a Republican, in the race for retiring GOP lawmaker Tom Tancredo’s seat. No Democrat has won the seat since it was created… More ▸
Julie Schonfeld was chosen as the first female rabbi to direct an American rabbinical association. Schonfeld was named Wednesday as the new executive vice president of the Rabbinical Assembly, the Conservative movement’s rabbinic group. She will succeed Rabbi Joel Meyers, who will step down July 1. Schonfeld is the first female rabbi to serve in… More ▸
Two of the leading gay congregations in the United States are gearing up to publish formal editions of their prayer books, marking the first time that a siddur drafted with the needs of gay and lesbian Jews in mind will be made available to a wide audience. Congregation Beth Simchat Torah in New York and… More ▸
Mordecai Specktor says his 19-year-old son Max “has never been in a fight†and is “not a violent person.†“He’s an anarchist,†said Specktor, the publisher and editor of Minnesota’s Jewish newspaper, the American Jewish World. He’s also “a University of Minnesota student, Jewishly educated.” His piano-playing son, he said, is “a wonderful guy.†Max… More ▸
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni smoothes her tailored black jacket, tosses back her head and takes in the King David Hotel hall packed cheek to jowl with foreign journalists. Every chair is taken, photographers line the walls and the lights of dozens of TV cameras bathe the room in a yellow glow. The woman who… More ▸
