http://www.forward.com The Forward, an independent, high-profile weekly newspaper, is a fearless and indispensable source of news and opinion on Jewish affairs. en-us http://www.forward.com/articles/13328/ 2008-05-08T16:23:00 <p>The devastation visited on Burma on May 6 by the cyclone known as Nargis is too vast for the human mind to comprehend. The official toll at press time was 22,000 dead and 42,000 missing, but the number of deaths is expected to reach above 100,000 when the count is completed. Hundreds of thousands of survivors cling to life amid the wreckage of their country, scrounging for food and clean water while they wait for rescue workers to fight through the ruins.</p> http://www.forward.com/articles/13329/ 2008-05-08T16:24:00 <p>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.</p>