New York City Mayor Eric Adams met with 55 women rabbis and cantors Thursday in what one of the rabbis called a “productive and respectful” discussion on issues that included combating antisemitism, climate change, homelessness, closing Rikers Island, healthcare, affordable housing and more.

The clergy sought the meeting earlier this week out of concern that the Orthodox Jews Adams regularly consults don’t represent the...

The man authorities say opened fire in a Buffalo grocery store Saturday (May 14), killing 10 mostly Black shoppers, was an avowed white supremacist. But his agenda went far beyond Blacks.

In the 180-page manifesto posted online two days before he carried out his attack, the 18-year-old gunman wrote that he chose the Tops Friendly Market on Buffalo’s east side because it is in an area with many Black residents. Eleven of the 13 people shot there were Black, law enforcement officials said.

Blacks, wrote Payton Gendron, come from a culture that sought to “ethnically...

It has been an agonizingly long time since the members of Baltimore’s two oldest Reform Jewish temples have been able to worship as well and as fully as they’d like.

Membership at Har Sinai Congregation and Temple Oheb Shalom dwindled for years, and with it their prospects for long-term survival. They considered merging five years ago, then talks moved forward in fits and starts. They united legally, then a pandemic hit.

Now the members of the nation’s “newest and oldest Reform congregation,” as its leadership team is calling it, are poised to celebrate their union...

Muslim and Jewish organizations are expressing concern about billionaire Elon Musk’s impending ownership of Twitter, warning that the aerospace tycoon could roll back moderation policies and unleash a new wave of harassment against religious minorities often targeted on the platform.

“It strikes me as deeply troubling and potentially dangerous that two people — Musk and (Facebook co-founder) Mark Zuckerberg — essentially control the public square,” Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, said in a statement. “That seems like a sad day for democracy.”

A draft opinion suggesting the Supreme Court will vote to strike down Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision guaranteeing federal protection for abortion rights in the United States, was published Monday night (May 2) by Politico.

The Supreme Court ...

A Jewish civil rights organization’s annual tally of antisemitic incidents in the U.S. reached a record high last year, with a surge that coincided with an 11-day war between Israel and the Hamas militant group, according to a report released Tuesday.

The Anti-Defamation League counted 2,717 antisemitic incidents of assault, harassment and vandalism in 2021, a 34% increase over the previous year and the highest number since the New York...

When Jodi Kushins founded Over the Fence Urban Farm, a cooperative agricultural project that takes up her backyard in Columbus, Ohio, she considered it a “relatively secular endeavor.”

It wasn’t until 2018 that she started thinking of herself as a Jewish farmer.

Even then, her agricultural conversion was more a matter of getting better results than a spiritual breakthrough. As her yields diminished over time, she said, “I thought back to Hebrew school, and remembered something about the fact that every seven years we were supposed to let the land rest, and I could...

Shopping for Passover on a recent day at a kosher supermarket in the Hasidic Jewish section of Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood, Moshe Werzberger worried about how inflation is driving up prices during one of the most important holidays for Jews.

“It affects us very much,” said the 23-year-old, who recently canceled plans to vacation in Florida with his wife and 2-year-old son because of skyrocketing prices. Inflation has become a main topic of debate for worshippers at his synagogue and also in his extended family...

A Marine artillery captain named Sukhbir Singh Toor has been on a mission over the past year to become the first Sikh in the United States Marine Corps allowed to openly practice his religion while in uniform.

During that time he has won a string of victories against the strict dress standards of the Marine Corps, and he can now wear the beard, long hair and turban required of a faithful Sikh while on duty. But recently, the Marine Corps dug in, refusing to allow him or any other Sikh to wear a beard on a combat deployment or during boot camp, saying that beards would hinder...

Shania Twain’s electrifying duet with Harry Styles wasn’t the only surprising turn at the Coachella music festival in Indio, California, last weekend (April 15-17). Outside the festival’s entrance, rapper Kosha Dillz, whose real name is Rami Matan Even-Esh, conducted 10-minute Passover Seders, complete with boiled eggs and horseradish.

Dillz, whose rap moniker is a nod to his Jewish heritage, has been partnering with the group...

When John Douglas Thompson let it be known he wanted to play Shylock, one of the most provocative starring roles in Shakespeare, that was all Arin Arbus needed to hear. Having directed Thompson in “Othello” and “Macbeth,” among other plays, Arbus counted the actor as a cherished fellow...

For many U.S. Christians, this weekend marks the first time since 2019 that they will gather in person on Easter Sunday, a welcome chance to celebrate one of the year’s holiest days side by side with fellow congregants.

The pandemic erupted in the country in March 2020, just ahead of Easter, forcing many churches to resort to online or televised worship. Many continued to hold virtual services last spring after a deadly winter wave of the coronavirus and as vaccination campaigns were still ramping up. But this year more churches are opening their doors for Easter services with...

For more than a millennium, the haggadah has been the centerpiece of the Jewish holiday of Passover. The book sets out the ceremony for the Seder meal, when families tell the biblical Exodus story of God delivering the ancient Israelites from slavery in Egypt.

Today, thousands of different haggadahs exist, with prayers, rituals and readings tailored to every type of Seder – from ...

At many Seder tables this week, the main course, after the long Haggadah readings, will consist of a large slab of beef brisket.

The dish is so beloved among Ashkenazi Jews that it got ...

When the Cathedral Church of St. Mark in Salt Lake City hosted dialogues last year on the Episcopal Church’s Sacred Ground curriculum, wrestling with issues of race and white privilege in the United States, it didn’t entirely resonate for Daniela Lee.

Lee, a student at Bexley Seabury Seminary at the University of Chicago, had been born and raised in Romania. What she needed to reckon...