Religion & Jewish Life

NEW YORK (Forward) — On a single week in late July, a major flashpoint in the internal culture wars of the Orthodox world erupted in two unrelated but connected incidents. The issue was homosexuality. A group of nearly 90 Orthodox rabbis chose July 22 to release its “Statement of… Read more »

Marc Mezvinsky and Chelsea Clinton during their wedding ceremony, July 31, 2010 (Genevieve de Manio)

NEW YORK (JTA) — Is it possible that the first iconic Jewish picture of the decade is of an interfaith marriage? Photographs taken Saturday show the Jewish groom wearing a yarmulke and a crumpled tallit staring into the eyes of his giddy bride under a traditional Jewish wedding canopy… Read more »

The lake at Kutcher's offers boating and fishing. (Uriel Heilman)

MONTICELLO, N.Y. (JTA) — For Yossi Zablocki, it was the phone call of a lifetime. Last February, the manager at Kutsher’s Country Club, the last kosher resort hotel in the Catskill Mountains, called him in a panic with news that owner Mark Kutsher was thinking of retiring and closing… Read more »

The Jewish-Muslim friendship bus team talks to a Muslim activist in the central square of Besancon, France, June 10, 2010. (Sue Fishkoff)

BESANCON, France (JTA) — On a hot afternoon in early June, an unusual looking bus is parked in the central square of this historic city in eastern France. Passers-by cast sidelong glances at the brightly colored portraits on its side accompanied by such slogans as “Jews and Muslims say… Read more »

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — Alas, this year on the Ninth of Av, Tisha B’Av, when we darken our mood and grieve our losses, should we add a lament for what has happened in the Gulf of Mexico? On a day when we acknowledge by chanting kinot, laments, the Jews… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Chabad emissaries usually associate Washington with their emphasis on education, but this year they got a taste of foreign policy suasion while handing out some, too. Hundreds of emissaries from across the United States and the world descended on the U.S. capital for two days last… Read more »

Bruce Zoldan standing in the Youngstown, Ohio, retail showroom of his fireworks company. (B. J. Alan company of Youngstown)

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — Millions of Fourth of July fuses waiting to be lit are a good sign for Bruce Zoldan and his family business, the B.J. Alan Company, the second largest importer and wholesaler of consumer fireworks in the United States. But it’s already been a pretty hectic… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Spurred by a major grant from one of the largest Jewish foundations, the rabbinical seminaries of three major synagogue movements are forging a groundbreaking partnership to train Jewish educators. The Jim Joseph Foundation announced May 24 that it was giving a combined $33 million to the… Read more »

SAN FRANCISCO (j. the Jewish news weekly of Northern California) — You have 73 new e-mails. Someone just posted on your wall. You have been tagged in a photo. You turn on your cell phone: “4 missed calls” … “2 new voice mails” … and a long string of… Read more »

    NEW YORK (JTA) – The U.S. Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist movements are warning that a proposed Israeli conversion bill is “disastrous to the unity of the Jewish people.”   Knesset members from the Yisrael Beiteinu party were in the United States this week trying to marshal support for a… Read more »