Jewish News

Religious gays offered conversion therapy

For years, organizations for homosexuals have refused to acknowledge the possibility of changing a person’s sexual inclination. A newly established association of religious gays and lesbians is now giving those psychological “conversion therapies” a chance.Moreover, the association even plans to subsidize these treatments for its disadvantaged members who cannot afford to pay for them.The move, which is expected to reignite ...

Religious gays battle for acceptance

A once unimaginable movement is emerging from within Israel’s insular Orthodox Jewish community: Homosexuals demanding to be accepted and embraced, no matter what the Bible says.Living alongside a secular majority that has largely embraced the Western gay rights movement, Israel’s religious gays are increasingly rejecting age-old dictates to ignore their attraction, abstain from sex or undergo therapy that supposedly will ...

Religion A Possible Factor In NYC Teacher Beating

A local teacher has been hospitalized after a brutal beating, and his three attackers may have targeted him simply because of his religion.Joel Weinberger, a 26-year-old father of four, has swollen eyes, a broken leg and his jaw has been wired shut. His difficulty talking about what happened to him was both physical and emotional.Family spokesman Isaac Abraham filled in ...

Relative of David Ben-Gurion releases first single after becoming 2011 Jewish idol

Mexican singer Adam Kleinberg, a relative of Israel’s founding father David Ben-Gurion, released his first single on Tuesday, after winning first prize at the Hallelujah 2011 singing competition.The single, which features on the new Hallelujah album, is a remake of Meir Banai’s “Geshem”, and is performed by Kleinberg and Israeli star and producer Momi Levi.Kleinberg, 21, was selected out of ...

Refugees protest in TA: ‘We are not diseased’

Over 1,000 people, including Israelis and refugees, marched through Tel Aviv Friday morning in protest of the racism against them and the government’s decision to set up a detention center for infiltrators in the south of the country.The protesters, who demonstrated through Rothschild Boulevard, held signs reading: “Netanyahu is a racist – don’t set up the detention center.”Foreign worker aid ...

Reform Jews forgive Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck of Fox News has stated that Reform rabbis are “almost like radicalized Islam.” Beck made the statement on his radio show on Tuesday, February 22, as part of a broader conversation stemming from a letter, signed almost exclusively by non-Orthodox rabbis, criticizing Beck for comparing his ideological foes to the Nazis.“There are the Orthodox rabbis and there are ...

Reform Jews at Odds with AIPAC Over Penalizing Palestinians for UN Move

Two major American Jewish groups are at odds over the prospect of penalties for the Palestinians in the wake of their enhanced United Nations status.The American Israel Public Affairs Committee in recent weeks has backed two congressional bids to at least shut down the Palestine Liberation Organization office in Washington in the wake of the November 29 United Nations General ...

Reform Groups Demand ‘Reform’ of Long-Standing Kotel Policies

Reform and secular groups filed a petition with the High Court Sunday, demanding the removal of Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovich as Rabbi of the Kotel and the Holy Places.The petition also requests that authority over the Kotel be removed from the organization, and that a new one be set up to officially “care” for the holy site, one that would be ...

Reform, Conservative Rabbis to Receive State Funding

Rabbis of conservative and reform communities will be recognized as official rabbis by the state, and will enjoy the same funding as orthodox rabbis who are appointed by the Chief Rabbinate.The road to state funding was paved after the state and reform movement representatives reached an understanding in a petition which was filed in 2005.An announcement presented by the State ...

Reflections On The First Yahrzeit Of ‘Ger Tzedek’ Yosef Robinson Z”L & On A Year Of Kaddish

He was more than an acquaintance but not quite a friend. Nevertheless, I miss him terribly because he was an inspiration and role model to all who knew him. And his death was not only a huge tragedy and a crime, but an enormous Kiddush Hashem.Yosef Robinson, z”l, came from the rough life of a Jamaican rapper, a hip-hop record producer, surrounded ...

Reflections of an Israeli monarchist on the eve of the royal wedding

I consider myself qualified to meddle in the affairs of the British royal family, about which I began to hear as a mere child, and especially about Prince Charles. This happened courtesy of my mother who frequently informed me about the prince’s habits and way of life in order to drum into me the fact that I am not Prince ...

Rediscovered, Ancient ‘tekhelet’ Color Is Reclaiming Israeli Interest

One of the mysteries that scholars have puzzled over for centuries is the exact shade of blue represented by “tekhelet,” which the Bible mentions as the color of ceremonial robes donned by high priests and ritual prayer tassels worn by the common Israelite.What was known about tekhelet (pronounced t-CHELL-et) was that the Talmud said it was produced from the secretion ...