Posted in Israel, Statistics on May 8th, 2008
Today’s New York Times has an article by Ethan Bronner on Israel’s 60th anniversary, and how the country is celebrating by inviting a collection of the world’s top political, scientific and business thinkers to discuss major world challenges–with a uniquely Jewish and Israeli spin, of course.
Of course the article can’t avoid mentioning Middle Eastern politics, […]
Posted in Israel, Conversion on May 2nd, 2008
Through this post at Jewschool, I learned about this Israeli High Rabbinical Court ruling that invalidates all conversions done by the State of Israel’s own Conversion Authority under the current head of that government agency, former Knesset member Chaim Drukman. The High Rabbinical Court ruled this because they examined a woman who had converted 15 […]
Posted in Israel on Mar 6th, 2008
Are American Jews losing their attachment to Israel? Common wisdom and a widely covered report from last year say yes; a new report from the Steinhardt Social Research Institute at Brandeis University says no.
“American Jewish Attachment to Israel: An Assessment of the ‘Distancing’ Hypothesis” is a direct rebuke of “Beyond Distancing: Young Adult American Jews […]
Posted in Israel, Conversion on Mar 4th, 2008
In a recent NY Times article about Israeli society, Gershom Gorenberg described the increasingly negative attitude of the Israeli rabbinate toward North American Jews. The story shows how a Jewish Israeli kibbutznik who was the child of an American immigrant had trouble getting the rabbinate to recognize that she was a Jew so she could […]
Posted in Israel, Popular culture on Jan 22nd, 2008
JTA’s Dina Kraft has a nice piece today that connects to several of our recent stories. As Nate Bloom reports in today’s installment of Interfaith Celebrities, Jamie-Lynn Sigler (Meadow Soprano on “The Sopranos”) recently visited Israel as part of a birthright israel tour. Birthright israel provides young Jewish adults who’ve never visited Israel before with a […]
Posted in Israel on Jan 16th, 2008
I’ve written before in this space about the difficulties faced by Israeli interfaith couples looking to get married. For quite a few of these couples, the solution to their problem is only a 55-minute flight from Tel Aviv: Cyprus.
According to this Moment magazine article by Karin Tanabe, in Lanarca, one of the wedding meccas, 40% […]
Posted in Israel on Jan 8th, 2008
In Israel, one in 25 people is both Jewish and not Jewish. They are Jewish enough to be allowed to emigrate to Israel under the Law of Return, but not Jewish enough to be recognized by the Orthodox establishment that oversees lifecyle events like marriage, divorce and burial. They are what Israelis call the “non-Jewish Jews.”
A JTA story by Dina […]
Posted in The Rest of the World, Israel on Nov 2nd, 2007
I was going to write about Reform Judaism magazine’s impressive package of articles on outreach, but I felt the need to respond to the latest instance of Abe Foxman-related controversy.
In the most recent issue of The (Boston) Jewish Advocate, Raphael Kohan reports on Boston Jewish leaders’ reaction to Abe Foxman’s Oct. 24 Q&A with JTA’s Ami Eden. In […]
Posted in Israel on Jun 11th, 2007
Russian Jewish immigrants to Israel face an absurd situation. In Russia, their identity cards marked them as Jewish, and they experienced anti-Semitism in their professional and personal lives. They were reminded of their Jewishness on a regular basis, whether they liked it or not.
But once they get to Israel, if they can’t confirm that their […]
Posted in Israel, Conversion on May 1st, 2007
The (New York) Jewish Week broke the news last week that the Chief Rabbinate of Israel has agreed to recognize all conversions by the Rabbinical Council of America, the largest Orthodox rabbinical association in North America. In exchange, the RCA will set up regional conversion courts that will follow the strict standards requested by the […]
