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Kohelet Yeshiva Finds Its Rhythm at Poetry Slam

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First Reform Day Camp Planned for Philly

Global

Claims Conference Carried Out Own Probe of Fraud

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Amid Brouhaha Over IRS, Z Street Gets Its Day in Court

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ZOA Regains Its Tax-Exempt Status

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Throngs Come Out to Support Israel

Synagogue Life

A Sign of the Times

By:

Bryan Schwartzman

Following years of steadily declining membership, Suburban Jewish Community Center B'nai Aaron, a longstanding Conservative synagogue in Havertown, is entering into merger talks with Adath Israel in Merion Station. The decision to enter negotiations came at a Dec. 19 congregational meeting, more than a year after synagogue leaders said it no longer made fiscal sense to hold on to its...

Local

Islamophobia? Not in This Quiet Neighborhood

By:

Carin Smilk

The cars slowly turn onto the long driveway, their wheels occasionally crunching the adjacent ground frozen from the night before and speckled with the merest dusting of snow. Rabbi Yossi Kaplan and Mohammad Aziz walk side by side in the direction of the oncoming line of traffic. Several young, professional-looking Muslim men pass them in the opposite direction, pausing to...

Local

IDF Officer: 'We Risked Our Lives to Avoid Collateral Damage'

By:

Bryan Schwartzman

The authors of the September 2009, United Nations-backed Goldstone Report -- accusing the Israel Defense Force of deliberately targeting Palestinian civilians and committing war crimes -- were provided ample evidence to the contrary by the very army being accused, but chose to ignore much of it, a high-ranking Israeli officer told a Center City audience. Col. Bentzi Gruber addressed a...

Local

Officer Recognized, 100 Years Later

By:

Bryan Schwartzman

Little is known about Morris Gelles, except his name and final act. One hundred years ago, the 26-year-old Philadelphia police officer charged into a blazing leather factory in Northern Liberties in an effort to rescue trapped firefighters. According to local newspaper accounts, the weather was so frigid that fire hydrants were completely frozen, greatly hampering efforts to put out the...

Local

Chester County: Forgotten Frontier?

By:

Aaron Passman, JE Feature

When Kate Nolt moved from Baltimore to the Chester County suburbs more than a decade ago with her boyfriend, it turned out to be a dramatic change. "I had culture shock, coming from Baltimore, with 100,000 Jews on every corner, to Chester County, where I could go into a grocery store and barely even find Chanukah candles," said Nolt. "I...