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From the Italian daily Corriere della Sera: Italian Rabbinical Assembly: "Pause for reflection in the dialogue" with CatholicsThe opinion on the change of the Good Friday prayer: "An abandonment of the very conditions for dialogue" ROME - And now, a rupture. The Italian Rabbinical Asseembly considers necessary a "pause for reflection in the dialogue" with Catholics after the modification of the Good Friday prayer for the Jews. And it underlines that the modification decided by Pope Ratzinger is "an abandonment of the very conditions for dialogue". The Assembly states so in a note signed by its president, Rabbi Giuseppe Laras.

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- On the eve of Super Tuesday, the oldest Orthodox Jewish Rabbinic organization in the country issued a historic declaration on voting and abortion. The Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the U.S. and Canada says Jewish voters should not vote for candidates who support abortion, calling them "antithetical" to Jewish values. Rabbi Yehuda Levin, a spokesman for the group, released a video message on Monday with the exhortation. "It is very important for our community to demonstrate its appreciation for our wonderful country by exercising our civic obligation to vote," he says. "However, it is even more...

Yesterday, Rav Avi Weiss and the Jewish activist organization he founded, AMCHA: the Coalition for Jewish Concerns, coordinated a civil disobedience protest at the United Nations. Around 50 rabbis and rabbinical students, as well as a lay communal leader or few, participated in the protest. They prepared themselves in a staging area near the Iranian Mission to the UN — putting on talleisim and distributing signs — and after a few short speeches and rounds of slogan-shouting, they marched, singing ‘Am Yisra’eil Hhai, to the steps that go down past the Isaiah Wall across the street from the UN buildings.

Rabbis for Human Rights Israel (RHRI) is at odds with its sister organization in North America over an issue that goes to the heart of the debate over Zionism's use and misuse of military might to defend itself. During a board meeting Monday in Jerusalem, some leading members of RHRI strongly criticized Rabbis for Human Rights North America (RHR-NA) for honoring a New York-based legal advocacy group that sued two senior Israeli security officials for perpetrating "war crimes." On December 11, RHR-NA honored the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) with the Raphael Lemkin Award for its work combating purported torture...

It was a bizarre sight: a cadre of Orthodox Jews, with their distinctive hats, beards and sidelocks, standing alongside President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran last month at a conference in Tehran debating the Holocaust. Among them was Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss, spokesman and assistant director of a small anti-Zionist group with a foothold in this town in Rockland County, home to one of the nation’s largest communities of Hasidic Jews. Unlike Mr. Ahmadinejad and most of the others present, including the former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, Rabbi Weiss does not deny or question the Holocaust; his grandparents died...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Leaders of the Conservative Jewish movement opened the door on Wednesday to the ordination of gay rabbis and the recognition of gay marriage, but made it clear the more orthodox in the faith may go on opposing such liberalization. "We as a movement see the advocacy of pluralism and we know that people come to different conclusions," said Rabbi Kassel Abelson, speaking for the 25-member Rabbinical Assembly Committee on Jewish Law and Standards which issued a series of advisory reports. "These ... are accepted as guides so that the gays and lesbians can be welcomed into...

A group of rabbis has been ordained in Germany for the first time since World War II and the destruction by the Nazis of the country's Jewish seminaries. Three Jewish graduates from the Abraham Geiger College in Potsdam were ordained in the eastern city of Dresden. More than 100,000 Jews live in Germany but there is a dearth of rabbis - there are only about 25 of them serving 100 congregations, a BBC reporter says. For years Germany has had to rely on rabbis imported from abroad. The ordination took place in Dresden's new synagogue which was rebuilt after the...

Committee of Jewish scholars likely to roll back ban on ordaining gay rabbis. 'It is simply not natural to demand that they remain celibate,' one rabbi says, adding that movement has to 'interpret God's will' A key Conservative Jewish leader is organizing talks nationwide to tell synagogues that the movement will likely roll back its ban on ordaining openly gay rabbis by year's end. He and two religious law experts joining him at the meetings are trying to help congregations prepare for the confusion and discomfort to follow. Rabbi Jerome Epstein, executive vice president of the United Synagogue of Conservative...

The Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) has called on Israel to reevaluate its military rules of war in light of Hizbullah's "unconscionable use of civilians, hospitals, ambulances, mosques and the like as human shields, cannon fodder and weapons of asymmetric warfare." The RCA made the statement at the end of a three-day solidarity mission last week in conjunction with Emunah, the modern Orthodox women's organization, during which a contingent of RCA rabbis toured the North and South, visiting the injured and gathering impressions of the extent of the damage caused by the warfare. Rabbi Basil Herring, executive vice president of...

Rabbi Dr. Einat Ramon appointed to serve as dean of conservative Schechter Rabbinical Seminary The Board of the Schechter Rabbinical Seminary in Jerusalem has appointed Rabbi Dr. Einat Ramon to serve as dean of the Schechter Rabbinical Seminary . Ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in 1989, Rabbi Ramon was the first Israeli woman to be ordained as a rabbi. She is also the first woman to head a Conservative/Masorti rabbinical school. Rabbi Ramon has been a courageous spokesperson for the Masorti Movement on crucial issues such as the conversion bill and the right to hold egalitarian prayers...

Rabbis to Bush: Don't back West Bank withdrawal Say evacuation plan against Torah, U.S. interests Posted: June 29, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern By Aaron Klein KIBBUTZ NAHAL OZ, Israel – A group of prominent rabbis is calling on President Bush to refuse political and financial support for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's plan to evacuate most of Judea and Samaria, stating the withdrawal is against U.S. interests, and that it violates basic tenets of Jewish law. "U.S. interests are being impacted by Israel's proposed retreat from terrorist strongholds in Judea and Samaria. In addition, as rabbis our obligation is to teach,...

Rabbis Forbid Hitchhiking at This Time 16:11 Jun 29, '06 / 3 Tammuz 5766 by Hillel Fendel "One who takes a dangerous chance at this time endangers the entire public," leading religious-Zionist rabbis ruled. Hamas terrorists threaten to kidnap more Israelis. A ruling issued today by Rabbis Avraham Shapira, Dov Lior and others states that one may not stand in dangerous places to wait for rides. "One who takes an unreasonable chance in this matter," the ruling states, "endangers the entire public - because the government is liable to be forced to release terrorists." The rabbis also place the onus...

Conservative and Masorti rabbinical organizations must decide about how inclusive they will be on full participation by gays in Jewish, congregational life The mainstream Jewish community has not been in a hurry to embrace gay Jews as full participants in Jewish communal life. A cursory reading of the Orthodox press reveals the vile and outrageous statements made by too many Orthodox rabbis. There are all too few Orthodox shuls where gays may feel comfortable if they are out of the closet. The Reform (and Reconstructionist) Movement has been far more open and welcoming. But many observant gay Jews prefer to...

1. Immigration Bill Grants Illegals In-state Tuition After the Senate Judiciary Committee approved and distributed a proposal for granting legal status to many undocumented aliens, conservatives were alarmed to discover that the 471-page bill makes illegal aliens eligible for in-state tuition costs. Under the proposal, illegals could pay the low tuition charged students who attend state universities in their home state, while legal residents of the U.S. would still be required to pay the much higher costs charged students who attend schools outside their state, the Washington Times reports. "This means that while American citizens from Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina,...

A group of anti-Zionist rabbis has visited the Palestinian parliament to pledge their support for the prospective Hamas-led government. The rabbis from the small ultra-Orthodox movement Neturei Karta, which this month sent a delegation to Iran, travelled to the West Bank town of Ram Allah to express their support for the Islamic group. The group rejects the existence of the state of Israel as contrary to Jewish law and believes the land should be returned to Palestinians. Neturei Karta believe that no Jewish state should be created before the coming of the messiah. "We are true Jews who have come...

In a closed-door meeting this week in an undisclosed site near Baltimore, a committee of Jewish legal experts who set policy for Conservative Judaism will consider whether to lift their movement's ban on gay rabbis and same-sex unions. In 1992, this same group, the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, declared that Jewish law clearly prohibited commitment ceremonies for same-sex couples and the admission of openly gay people to rabbinical or cantorial schools. The vote was 19 to 3, with one abstention. Since then, Conservative Jewish leaders say, they have watched as relatives, congregation members and even fellow rabbis publicly...

Being kind to the cruel Caroline Glick, THE JERUSALEM POST Feb. 28, 2006 On February 6, the General Synod of the Church of England voted to impose a selective secondary boycott on Israel. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams supported the motion. This was not Williams's first swipe against the Jewish state. To take just one example of his consistent anti-Israel bias, in June 2004, during a visit to Jerusalem, Williams dismissed protocol and harshly criticized Israel for building the security fence to protect its citizens from mass murder. Britain's Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks reacted angrily to the synod's decision. In...

Leaflets distributed at synagogues over weekend blast courts, permit violence against police Right-wing leaflets distributed in synagogues across the country over the weekend in the wake of violent clashes between settlers and security forces at the West Bank outpost of Amona featured scathing attacks against the government, courts, and police forces. "A government that acts against the people and its Torah is defined as a 'conspiracy of evil' and should be ignored," one such leaflet distributed across the nation read. The leaflet, entitled "Small World," also blasts High Court judges for allowing the evacuation of Amona to proceed and characterizes...

A knife-wielding man shouting "I will kill Jews!" attacked a synagogue in downtown Moscow Wednesday, slashing and stabbing at least eight people before the son of a rabbi wrestled him to the ground, officials and eyewitnesses said. Witnesses said the shaven-headed attacker yelled "Heil Hitler! as he aimed at victims' necks, heads or torsos in what appeared to be a well-planned attack. The attack at the Chabad Bronnaya synagogue came amid an increase in racist crimes and hate-group activity in Russia. Jewish leaders said it should send a message to Russian authorities and the public to fight prejudice. "If today's...

Rabbis convert 'lost tribe of Israel' Recognize 200 members of group believing it descended from Joseph ----------------------------------------------- Posted: September 26, 2005 11:03 p.m. Eastern By Aaron Klein © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com An official delegation of Israeli rabbis arrived in India last week and began converting to Judaism members of a group that believes it is one of the ten "lost tribes" of Israel, jump starting a process many hope will bring the tribe's remaining 7,000 members to the Jewish state. The Bnei Menashe say they are the descendants of Manasseh, one of biblical patriarch Joseph's two sons, and a grandson of...