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NEW HOPE: Labor Party Knesset member Colette Avital reviews the dashed hopes of the past decade, and draws new hope from a growing Israeli realism — part of the Forward’s look back at the history of the Jewish state in honor of its 60th birthday. Read More

The Forward's 2008 Rabinics section
Israeli Police Probe Allegations That New York Charity Funneled Funds to Olmert-Tied Entity
A Jerusalem foundation with a fundraising arm based in the suburban home of a Long Island businessman is being probed in Israel in a corruption investigation that is threatening to bring down Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Investigators are looking into allegations that The New Jerusalem Foundation and Morris (Moshe) Talansky, who heads its American fundraising efforts, served as a conduit for fund transfers to interests tied to Olmert. Read more

Plan to House Two N.Y. Shuls Erupts Into Feud
Partner: ‘If This Were a Straight Real Estate Deal, I Could Understand It’
Plans to establish a downtown Manhattan outpost of the famously insular Brooklyn Syrian Jewish community are falling victim to an intra-community business deal gone bad — a mess that has sparked controversy within Brooklyn’s Sephardic community and embroiled a storied Ashkenazic congregation as well. Read more
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Olympic Divide
artspicShould Jews give the Beijing Olympics a cold shoulder because of human-rights abuses in Tibet and Darfur? American Jewish groups are bitterly divided. Read more

Editorial
Conversion Blues
May 8, 2008
Israel’s Supreme Rabbinical Court acted cruelly and capriciously when it voted to nullify a woman’s conversion to Judaism this month, 15 years after she took the supposedly irrevocable step of casting her lot with the Jewish people. The court’s decision robbed the woman and her Israeli-born children of a lifetime of loyalties and identities. It cast a shadow over the religious status — and the marriage, divorce and inheritance rights — of hundreds, perhaps thousands of Israelis who were converted under the same procedure as the unfortunate woman. And it almost certainly transgressed the traditional rabbinic ban on questioning or shaming a convert.

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