Judaism

Across US, faith groups mobilize to aid Ukrainian refugees

April 4, 2022

As U.S. refugee resettlement agencies and nonprofits nationwide gear up to help Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion and war that has raged for nearly six weeks, members of faith communities have been leading the charge to welcome the displaced.

In Southern California, pastors and lay individuals are stationing themselves at the Mexico border waving Ukrainian flags and offering food, water and prayer. Around the country, other religious groups are getting ready to provide longer-term support for refugees who will have to find housing, work, health care and schooling....

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South Asian Americans face a complicated relationship with the swastika

March 25, 2022

During Nikhil Mandalaparthy's senior year of high school in 2015, the local Hindu temple in his hometown was vandalized. Spray-painted in red on the outside of the Bothell, Washington, worship and cultural center were the words “Get Out” — alongside a symbol that was almost familiar to the temple’s patrons: a swastika. 

But the mark used to terrorize Mandalaparthy’s community was different than the swastikas he had grown up seeing in religious contexts. It was sharp and at a 45-degree angle, what he recognized immediately as a mark of Nazism and white supremacy. ...

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Jews say making daylight saving time permanent threatens morning prayer

March 24, 2022

American Jews say they were blindsided by the U.S. Senate’s lightning-fast passage of a bill to make daylight saving time year-round and intend to fight it.

The Sunshine Protection Act, which passed the Senate on March 15, will make it nearly impossible for Jews to pray communally in the morning, Jewish advocates say, and still get to work or school on time during the winter months.

According to Jewish law, morning prayers must take place after the sun rises. Daylight saving time, which currently begins on the second Sunday in March and ends on the first Sunday in...

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How members of three religions experience workplace discrimination differently

March 11, 2022

Members of three major world religions face discrimination in the workplace, but each experience it in different ways, according to new research.  

Researchers from Rice University’s Religion and Public Life Program (RPLP) drew their conclusions from an analysis of 194 in-depth interviews with Muslim, Jewish, Christian, and non-religious employees to determine how members of each group perceived their experiences with workplace discrimination.  

“...

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Ahead of Purim, Jewish students take up fasting to show solidarity with Ukraine

March 16, 2022

Ben Lefkowitz, a senior at Emory University, had never fasted the day before Purim, the holiday that celebrates how the biblical Queen Esther saved the Jewish people from destruction.

But on Wednesday (March 16), he planned to forgo food from sunup to sundown as part of a Hillel International appeal for Jewish unity in support of Ukraine refugees.

The Jewish college student organization is urging students to donate what they would have spent on meals Wednesday to the organization’s ...

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US Jews furiously raise money, send delegations to help Ukraine

March 12, 2022

On Saturday (March 12), 19 rabbis from the New York region boarded a flight to Warsaw and from there planned to travel to the Ukrainian border to deliver medical supplies and offer comfort to Ukrainians fleeing their country.

Their 48-hour mission to Poland, organized by the UJA-Federation of New York, is just one of many quickly organized to help Jewish and other Ukrainian refugees.

Some 2 million Ukrainians, mainly women and children, have fled the country as Russian forces widen their ground offensive. Jews, who have lived in Ukraine for more than a millennia,...

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People of all faiths flock to U.S. Ukrainian churches in acts of solidarity

March 8, 2022

The diverse group showed up, one after another, so that when the pews were full, people spilled into the aisles at St. Vladimir Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral in Parma, Ohio.

“It was a standing-room crowd that came to pray and show unwavering solidarity,” said Lee C. Shapiro, regional director of the American Jewish Committee’s Cleveland chapter.

Since the...

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The Fight Over 'Maus' Is Part of a Bigger Cultural Battle in Tennessee

March 4, 2022

After the McMinn County School Board voted in January to remove “Maus,” a graphic novel about the Holocaust, from its eighth-grade curriculum, the community quickly found itself at the center of a national frenzy over book censorship.

The book soared to the top of the Amazon best-seller list. Its author, Art Spiegelman, compared the board to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and suggested that McMinn officials would rather “teach a nicer Holocaust.” At a recent...

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Jewish New Yorkers Unite to Raise Millions for Ukraine

March 4, 2022

Rabbi Labish Becker, the executive director of Agudath Israel of America, an umbrella organization of ultra-Orthodox Jewish groups, has raised more than $2 million for Ukraine since the Russian invasion. He said the emergence of President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is Jewish, as “a Ukrainian national hero,” has been “a source of pride for people” amid the grim news of war.

“Everyone is sort of pinching themselves,” he said...

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How a coming-of-age ritual for Jewish girls aided the rise of women's rights

March 1, 2022

A century ago, Jewish American girls gained the right to come of age ritually as their male counterparts do: with sheer terror delivering speeches and chanting biblical Hebrew in their squeaky voices before family, friends and entire congregations. Like bar mitzvah boys, they too could receive the sorts of gifts “you’ll appreciate when you’re older,” like trees planted in Israel in their names.

Today bat (or bas) mitzvahs are commonplace — and occasions for...

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Simeon Maslin, influential rabbi, national Reform leader, and author, dies at 90

March 1, 2022

Simeon Maslin, 90, of Philadelphia, senior rabbi emeritus at Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel in Elkins Park, former president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, and an influential author and speaker on Jewish life, died Saturday, Jan. 29, of cancer at home.

As senior rabbi at Keneseth Israel from 1980 to 1997, Rabbi Maslin spoke often and wrote extensively about his faith and its collision with modern issues. A teacher and mentor to many in the...

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Doug Emhoff highlights Black interfaith contributions as new project launches

February 24, 2022

Second gentleman Doug Emhoff lauded the interfaith work of Black religious communities for “saving lives” through distribution of COVID-19 vaccinations and for continuing efforts to get out the vote when he spoke at a midweek Black History Month event.

“Over the past year, Black faith communities have been working as trusted voices in their communities and getting the right facts and information out to their neighbors,” he said in remarks Wednesday (Feb. 23) at an online event co-hosted by the White House and the Black Interfaith Project. “This has led to millions upon...

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Boston area college in turmoil after weeks-long string of antisemitic and racist incidents

February 22, 2022

For nearly a month, a small liberal arts college just miles outside of Boston has been roiled by a spate of hate incidents, including antisemitic graffiti and threatening racist language, prompting the school to offer a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone involved.

The incidents at Curry College, located in Milton, a suburb south of Boston, began Jan. 27, when International Holocaust Remembrance Day is observed worldwide, with reports of drawings of swastikas and discriminatory and hateful language.

Numerous other...

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