JBC News of Interest – 03/13/11
Several recent news stories may be of interest to our readers, so let’s dive right in… Apparently putting on tefillin in the airport or on an airplane can still cause you some trouble in the USA. Once again there has been an incident in which observant Jews in morning prayers have caused panic in flight, this time on an Alaska Airlines flight to LA from Mexico. Shmarya over at Failed Messiah has a story with links to similar ones from recent history. Arnold Eisen, the Chancellor of … [Read more…]
JBC News of Interest – 02/23/11
Hi all, Sorry it’s been a while since we’ve posted a news roundup. Between working on podcast related issues and site maintenance, Avi and I have been pretty busy. So… off we go. There have been several stories recently dealing with the ongoing conversion train wreck crisis in Israel. In one example published in Ha’aretz, a Canadian who converted via a Modern Orthodox community with the intention of moving to Israel with his wife – an Israeli herself – and their children, was … [Read more…]
JBC News of Interest – 1/9/11
Several media outlets have reported that Rabbi Alysa Stanton, the first African-American female rabbi, has not had her contract renewed for her first pulpit at a Reform congregation in Greenville, North Carolina. Rabbi Stanton made headlines when she was the first African-American woman ordained as a rabbi by the Hebrew Union College, and indeed, the first in America (the world?). Haaretz reported on the story here, and Time magazine did a story on Rabbi Stanton shortly after her ordination … [Read more…]
JBC News of Interest – 12/13/10
Here’s your news and interesting article round-up for this week. The podcast over on the Tablet Magazine site has an interesting offering on one Luzer Twersky, a young Satmar Chassid who has become a secular Jew over the last year. The podcast explores the challenges Mr. Twersky experienced – and still is – as he transitions from an insular, shtetl-like lifestyle to a modern Jewish life in the secular world. It is an interesting story on many levels. Tablet also has an interesting print … [Read more…]
A Convert Laments the Rotem Bill
An early morning on what will surely become another sweltering day in Los Angeles … the haze beginning to clear. Erev Tisha B’Av, 5770 … the eve of destruction … . Sitting in my study, just off the phone from another not infrequent conversation with an Israeli friend, my usual black kippah srugah with its blue-and-white-patterned border slightly askew atop my thinning hair, I probe our texts pondering the events of the last week. Thirty-plus years of my own Jewish life flash … [Read more…]
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