Happy New Year. Here’s to a great 2011!!!!
As we reflect on the New Year and look back at the year that was. Whew…2010 what a whirlwind. Here is my top ten list of important Jewish stories for the year. What are yours?
1. The Carmel Fire destroyed 1000’s of acres and more than 3 million trees in northern Israel
2. The Arrest of Anat Hoffman at the Western Wall with the Torah in July continued to show the inequities in religious life at Judaism’s holiest site.
3. Chelsea Clinton marries Mark Mezvinsky in the most famous interfaith wedding!
4. Jon Stewart challenges the anti-Semitism of CNN’s Rick Sanchez who said the Jews control CNN and that Stewart was a bigot.
5. Elena Kagan becomes a Supreme Court Justice. The Third Jew on this bench!
6. The Israeli Rotem Bill made its way through to the Knesset and was intent upon changing the conversion requirements which would have excluded even Diaspora Orthodox rabbis from having their conversions recognized in Israel. This is urgent as the compromise reached this summer has expired.
7. The controversy in the Orthodox world over the ordination of women as Rabbis and what to call them, Rabba? Maharat, Rosh Kehilla?
8. The controversy that was caused by the New Jersey Jewish Standard newspaper by refusing a wedding announcement for a gay couple in the days following the rash of gay suicides and the outpouring of discussion over it.
9. Ahmadinejad’s continued bombastic ways threatening Israel’s survival and the tough sanctions that the Obama Administration were able to put on Iran.
10. The documentary Jews and Baseball premiered at the Jerusalem Film Festival continuing to highlight this important sport and the many ways in which Jews have affected the game!