Forward.com

Doctors Say Circumcision Ritual Still Not SafeA long-simmering dispute over a controversial circumcision procedure with allegedly life-threatening risks will land like a hot potato on the desk of incoming New York state Governor Eliot Spitzer this January, after the administration of outgoing Republican Governor George Pataki reached an agreement with Hasidic leaders on precautions that medical experts say will do little to reduce the risks.…Read more

All Aboard: StudytimeAny compendium of Yiddish jokes is chock-full of items about Jews on a train. They talk, they eat, they sleep — all in the buildup toward some punch line about how Jews traveled in the old country. It was the “Jews on a train” phenomenon that Romanian-born Rabbi Moshe Shapiro was hoping to address when he launched the Daf Yomi, a page-a-day schedule for learning Talmud, in 1934. The idea behind it, he said, was that when two Jews met randomly in their travels, they could discuss the day’s Talmud portion together.…Read more

Israeli Rightist Calls for Transfer of ArabsEffi Eitam, a leader of the joint Knesset faction aligned with Orthodox Zionists worldwide, drew swift condemnation this week from secular American Jewish organizations because of his call “to expel the great majority of the Arabs” from the West Bank and “sweep the Israeli Arabs from the political system.” But for the most part, his ideological allies in the United States have remained silent.…Read more

Orthodox Rabbis Eye Liberal SeminaryThe main union of Modern Orthodox rabbis in America is preparing to vote on whether to admit graduates from an upstart Manhattan seminary.Most of the 1,000 members of the Rabbinical Council of America are graduates of Modern Orthodoxy’s flagship institution, Yeshiva University. But the RCA’s executive committee is scheduled to vote in June…Read more

Hasidic Rapper Strives To Stay Atop the ChartsThis may be hard for some people to believe, but there was a time when MTV did not feature a Lubavitch Hasid in regular rotation.In just three short years, Matisyahu, also known as the Hasidic reggae superstar, has become a veritable phenomenon of Jewish and American pop culture. In his wake he has left sold-out venues across the…Read more