Religion & Jewish Life

NEW YORK (JTA) — When the 92nd Street Y announced last week that it had hired a new executive director, Crain’s New York Business went with an eye-catching headline. “It’s a goy! 92nd St. Y picks first non-Jewish chief.” The announcement that Henry Timms would lead the famed Upper… Read more »

Michael Rovinsky: "The truth is I hate crying kids and I can't stand the sight of blood."

 NEW YORK (JTA) — Who knew? It turns out that mohels not only have one of the most peculiar professions in the Jewish world, but they’re funny, eccentric and self-promotional in odd ways, too.  Circumcision activists pro and con can debate the efficacy of circumcision for everything from health… Read more »

Haredi Orthodox men studying toward professional degrees at Kemach, a Jerusalem-based organization that guides haredim through study programs and job placement. (Kemach)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — When Moshe Friedman turned 31, he made what was for him a radical decision: He left school and launched a start-up. Plenty of Israelis jump from graduate school to the high-tech sector, but for Friedman the leap was longer. A descendant of rabbis, he had… Read more »

More than 5,000 Israelis are on a list of people restricted from marrying based on prohibitions in traditional Jewish law. (Ekaterina Lin/Shutterstock)

JERUSALEM (JTA) — When she decided to split up from her husband, she went before an Orthodox rabbinical court and, after two perfunctory hearings and little discussion, received a religious writ of divorce. It was only months later that the woman learned that the court had flagged her as… Read more »

Might the Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball team someday be lifting the nBA championship trophy, as its players and others did here after winning the 2012 Israeli Basketball Super League title? (Flash 90)

BALTIMORE (JTA) – Maccabi Tel Aviv reportedly is heading back to the United States this fall for its first exhibition games against NBA teams in five years – but greater developments appear to be in the works for the iconic franchise and Israeli basketball. For one, how about NBA… Read more »

BALTIMORE (JTA) – Before leading the Southern Methodist University men’s basketball team onto the practice court March 16, coach Larry Brown spent a few moments in his office with several of his six grandchildren visiting from Charlotte, N.C. The day being Purim, Brown was asked whom he was masquerading… Read more »

Youth from Ioannina's Greek community, in traditional dress, hold candles to be lit in memory of more than 500 children who were deported to Auschwitz. (Gavin Rabinowitz)

IOANNINA, Greece (JTA) — When the Jews of Ioannina gathered in their whitewashed-stone synagogue over the weekend, it was to commemorate 70 years since the Nazis destroyed their community. But the March 30 gathering also served to highlight a source of present-day sadness: the withering of the unique 2,300… Read more »

PUERTO IGUAZU, Argentina (JTA) — The youthful group of 60 drew their chairs around tables strewn with jars of markers and the occasional Rubik’s Cube, nearby chalkboards at the ready for jotting down big ideas. The conference hall was suffused with a can-do vibe that wouldn’t have seemed out… Read more »

(JTA) — Longtime fans of the Chicago Cubs know there are a few mainstays they can expect when they visit Wrigley Field: ivy on the outfield walls, a strict no-wave policy rigorously enforced by fans and, most days, disappointing play by the hometown team. But there’s one little-known quirk… Read more »

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — In the circumcision wars, circumcision has been winning some big battles. A new survey of medical data going back more than two decades has found that the health benefits of circumcision far outweigh the risks. The publication of the article on April 4 by the… Read more »

Pope John Paul II places a letter between the stones of Jerusalem's Western Wall on March 26, 2000. (Amos Ben Gershom/Israel Government Press Office via Getty Images)

(JTA) — Popes John XXIII and John Paul II are being declared saints of the Roman Catholic church on April 27, the day that is also the eve of Yom Hashoah.  It’s a coincidence but a notable one.  These two post-Holocaust pontiffs revolutionized relations between Catholics and Jews, fostering… Read more »

Rabbi Benjamin Sharff

NEW YORK (JTA) — This week, 73 North American rabbis will be missing something when they go to Shabbat services: their hair. As part of a campaign that raised more than $570,000 for pediatric cancer research, approximately 60 male and female rabbis voluntarily shaved their heads on Tuesday night… Read more »

(JTA) — When the leaders of Winnipeg’s Jewish federation sat down 13 years ago to try to figure out a way to reverse the community’s decline, they came up with a novel idea: recruit Jews from overseas. The idea was pretty straightforward. Capitalizing on the pro-immigration policies of their… Read more »

(JTA) — The conflict between Russia and Ukraine has pitted Jewish leaders from both countries against each other, touching off a discordant exchange between prominent rabbis on opposite sides of the border. The discord had been brewing since the onset of the protests in Ukraine in November, but it… Read more »

BALTIMORE (JTA) – In the biblical tradition of lingering in the desert en route to the Promised Land, Major League Baseball teams are packing up and embarking on their exodus from Arizona (and Florida) spring training sites to begin the new season. Rosters won’t be finalized until this weekend,… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) – Be afraid. Be very afraid. Even if you converted to Judaism under Orthodox auspices, your conversion may be called into question by the Israeli Chief Rabbinate and the Rabbinical Council of America, the main centrist Orthodox rabbinical group in the United States. If you live… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Ritz has a new bacon-flavored cracker hitting shelves — with kosher certification The signature O.U.-Dairy symbol appears on the box of the Nabisco nosh. “There was much discussion over the decision about this product,” acknowledged Rabbi Moshe Elefant, COO of the Orthodox Union Kashrut Department.… Read more »

New auburn basketball coach Bruce Pearl engulfed by adoring fans upon arriving at the Auburn University Regional Airport on his 54th birthday, March 18, 2014. (Courtesy Auburn University/Zach Bland)

BALTIMORE (JTA) — Shortly after assembling the players trying out for the American squad he’d be coaching at the 2009 Maccabiah Games, Bruce Pearl brought them to Sabbath evening services at the Heska Amuna Synagogue in Knoxville, Tenn. The passionate and gregarious Pearl, a veteran of reading the haftarah… Read more »

The central synagogue of the Abayudaya Jewish community in Uganda. Most of the 2000-member community is conservative, but a small faction has chosen to practice Orthodoxy. (Ben Sales)

NABUGOYE, Uganda (JTA) — On Fridays at sundown, the Jewish residents of this village set amid the lush hills of eastern Uganda gather in the synagogue to greet Shabbat. The room is bare, the light is dim and the Conservative prayer books are worn. But the spare surroundings do… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Questions of personal status are among the most sensitive issues in Judaism and thus require responsible rabbinic leadership. That is one reason why there was such an outcry last year when Israel’s Chief Rabbinate refused to allow my teacher, Rabbi Avi Weiss, to vouch for the… Read more »