MOUNT KISCO, N.Y. (JTA) – Last summer, I was on the phone with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer assigned to Armando Rojas, our deported synagogue custodian of two decades, assuring him that I could vouch that he is not a flight risk or...
WASHINGTON (JTA) – In May, Pope Francis issued a detailed ruling on how officials in the Roman Catholic Church must handle cases of clerical sexual abuse, the first official codification of the church’s global policy.Though abuse survivors have criticized...
Readers respond to ‘political correctness’ commentary Regarding columnist Marty Rochester’s May 29 commentary, “The wrongness of political correctness,” I must admit that I cringe whenever I hear anyone use the term “political correctness.” It...
Despite my grizzled appearance, I want to assure you that I did not know the first Joseph Pulitzer. He died in 1911, just before my time.And yet I knew him.And I didn’t know the second Joseph Pulitzer. He died in 1955, when I was four years old.And...
By Jonathan S. Tobin, JNS
• Published June 13, 2019
The irony is so great that it’s almost too obvious. The very week that a milestone was achieved in the state of Israel when a gay man became a cabinet minister, a leading gay organization in the United States banned Jewish symbols from its annual pride...
It’s been two months since Andrew Rehfeld departed as president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of St. Louis to become president of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. This seems like a good time to brief our community on where Federation...
By Rabbi James Bennett & Rabbi Andrea Goldstein
• Published June 6, 2019
We are grateful to our colleague Rabbi Seth Gordon for his articulate and thoughtful op-ed in the St. Louis Jewish Light on May 23 (“Jewish law, abortion and born v. unborn life”) laying out an argument that provides food for thought based on his...
As in all life matters, when it comes to abortion, Judaism doesn’t speak of rights but of responsibilities and obligations. Seeing things through that lens can be a real eye opener.The concept of “rights” is deeply ingrained in our Western minds....
The criminal investigations that special counsel Robert Mueller led for the Department of Justice for the last two years were not about Donald Trump or Donald Jr. or Michael Cohen or George Papadopoulos or Michael Flynn or any of the many other members...
ROBERT A. COHN, Editor-in-Chief Emeritus
• Published June 2, 2019
June 6, 2023, will mark the 79th anniversary of D-Day, the Normandy invasion that dealt a fatal blow to the evil, genocidal dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, saved Western civilization and arguably the Jews of the entire world.
On June 5, 1944, after...
What do Notre Dame Cathedral, Kate Smith and Joe Biden have in common? All are famous names from the past, threatened recently with erasure from our collective memory because they do not stand up to contemporary sensibilities.In short, they have each...
By Rabbi Carnie Shalom Rose
• Published May 30, 2019
There are particular sacred texts of Jewish Tradition that I make a point of reviewing at least on an annual basis. These tend to be teachings and insights that not only appeal to my mind and intellect, but also resonate deeply within the chambers of...
