Religion

Ask the Ethicists: a Jewish Week Community Forum

Relationships: what should I do?

 Featuring New York Times ethicist Randy Cohen and the Jewish Week's Rabbi Joshua Hammerman, moderated by Jewish Week editor and publisher Gary Rosenblatt

Submitted by James Besser on Mon, 12/20/2010 - 08:59
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JFNA General Assembly Highlights

 This year's General Assembly took place in New Orleans, bringing together professional and lay leaders in the Jewish community. Highlights included speeches by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Vice-President Joe Biden.

 

Submitted by James Besser on Fri, 11/12/2010 - 11:58
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The Presbyterians, Israel and the value of community relations

Submitted by James Besser on Fri, 07/09/2010 - 14:31

In a world where Israel has fewer and fewer friends, Jewish groups here increasingly face a choice: do they treat Israel's critics as implacable adversaries? Or do they look for ways to work with some critics and perhaps change their mind on some issues?

Increasingly, muscular pro-Israel groups take the first approach; the second, which defines  the whole Jewish community relations movement, is in disfavor in many Jewish circles.

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Presbyterians Approve Softer Middle East Report, Reject Divestment

07/09/2010
Staff Report

The Presbyterian Church (USA) severely modified a report by its Middle East Study Committee widely seen as anti-Israel, rejected calls for divestment from Israel and gave a conditional okay to Israel's Gaza blockade.

But the report approved by a 558-119 vote at the Church's General Assembly in Minneapolis also called for linking U.S. aid to Israel to an end of settlement expansion.

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Extravagant Jewish Celebrations – Have We Gone Too Far?

Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz
07/09/2010
Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz
Special to the Jewish Week

$100,000 for a wedding? $20,000 for a bar mitzvah? When did extravagance and luxury become such primary Jewish values? I can’t remember the last simcha (Jewish celebration) I attended at which there were not tremendous amounts of wasted food, overly expensive napkins and bands large enough for a royal banquet.

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Riverdale Synagogue Bomb Plot Case Carries High Stakes

NYPD officers patrol in front of Riverdale Temple, one of two Riverdale synagogues targeted in bomb plot. getty images

Lawyers for Newburgh Four claim entrapment in incident cited as case in point for nonprofit security grants.

07/07/2010
Adam Dickter
Assistant Managing Editor

 When the trial of the so-called Newburgh Four, accused of a plotting to blow up two Riverdale synagogues, commences next month, it will be the first case of alleged anti-Jewish terrorism in a New York courtroom in more than 15 years.

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Elena Kagan, Eye Candy Mentality & Jewish Wisdom

Elena Kagan
07/07/2010
Mark Pearlman
JInsider

The news surrounding Elena Kagan’s nomination has focused on more than her legal qualifications — her looks have caused a lot of buzz, too. Michael Savage, talk show commentator, said that Kagan “looks like she belongs in a kosher deli.” Another writer questioned, “Why do Janet Napolitano, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan all look like linebackers for the New York Jets?” JInsider wanted to get a Torah perspective on the relative importance of physical appearance from one of our favorite and most thoughtful rabbis, Rabbi Naomi Levy (www.nashuva.com).

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Perlow Hospice History

07/06/2010
Navah Harlow

I read with interest “More Jewish Options For End-Of-Life Care” (June 4) reporting on the acquisition by Metropolitan Jewish of the Jacob Perlow Hospice and the Zicklin Jewish Hospice Residence. Metropolitan Jewish has been a leader in hospice care for many years.

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West Side Baby Boom

07/06/2010
Ariel Rosen

 I really liked Hilary Larson’s article about the Jewish baby boom on the Upper West Side (Neighborhoods, June 11). However she neglected to mention the Upper West Side’s fastest growing community — and New York City’s only Jewish Renewal community — Romemu, whose most recent program addition is all about babies.

 

 

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One Family, Two Faiths, A Multitude Of Questions

Helene Lauffer and Muzaffar Chishti are hoping their daughter Maryam “examines both sides of her background and synthesizes them

Interfaith marriages are hard enough, but a Jewish-Muslim family raising dual-identity children?

07/06/2010
Doug Chandler
Special To The Jewish Week

Her father fled Nazi Germany before World War II, arriving in New York as a refugee; her grandparents and an aunt were murdered at Auschwitz; and another aunt, now 92, somehow survived two years of hiding in Berlin.

His grandfather built a life in India as a renowned Islamic and Persian scholar, a teacher and an imam at the local mosque, and his Muslim family continues to live in South Asia.

With two such markedly different backgrounds, the chances of Helene Lauffer and Muzaffar Chishti meeting, much less falling in love, could be seen as remote by many observers. 

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