Tagged Iceland

Iceland welcomes its first rabbi while considering a ban on circumcision

Rabbi Avi and Mushky Feldman with their daughters in Reykjavik, March 26, 2018. (Courtesy of Avi Feldman)

REYKJAVIK, Iceland  (JTA) — At a windswept harbor of this Nordic capital, a bearded man wearing a black hat dips eating utensils into the icy water while hissing from pain induced by the bitter cold. Perplexed by the spectacle, a caretaker helpfully offers to let the man and his… Read more »

Iceland is getting its first resident rabbi in decades

Rabbi Avi Feldman, left, and wife Mushky are moving with daughters Chana and Batsheva to Iceland. (Chabad.org)

(JTA) — The Chabad movement is sending a rabbi and his wife to Iceland, an island nation with 250 Jews where ritual slaughter of animals is illegal and circumcision is likely to be outlawed as well. Rabbi Avi Feldman, 27, of Brooklyn, New York, and his Sweden-born wife Mushky,… Read more »

Finding Jewish leadership in far-flung Iceland

Mike Levin, seen here holding the Icelandic Jewish community's paper Torah scroll, once baked his own matzah for a Passover Seder because none was available in the country for purchase. (Alex Weisler)

REYKJAVIK, Iceland (JTA) — For Mike Levin, a native of Chicago, it took a move to Iceland to turn him into a Jewish leader. More than 25 years ago, Levin met an Icelandic woman while both were studying music at a university in Vienna. They married soon after, moved… Read more »