Photo Credit: Temple Beth El
Rescinded Reform Rabbi Keren Alpert (L), and Reform Rabbi Daniel Sime (R) on Rosh Hashana. She was too busy to take the distance-learning course and they ordained her anyway, and then, what a shanda.

It may have something to do with the membership form one can download from the Temple Beth El website, where they’re asked to enter the membership fees they commit to paying. I suppose fewer folks would show up if the leader of the place called herself or himself social director, or community organizer—which is what they are, and many are very good at it, too. They’re just not rabbis.

“She endeared herself … in a way that is just incredible, so we feel for her” Rosenfeld told the Detroit papers. “I also feel for members of the congregation who feel they may have been deceived in some way. … It’s just a shame this happened.

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Oh, and if you were wondering, Rosenfeld added that the rites Alpert performed, such as weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs and conversions, are valid. Rabbis were required only for conversions, and a rabbi joined her when she officiated those, he said.

I’d still ask for my money back…

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Yori Yanover has been a working journalist since age 17, before he enlisted and worked for Ba'Machane Nachal. Since then he has worked for Israel Shelanu, the US supplement of Yedioth, JCN18.com, USAJewish.com, Lubavitch News Service, Arutz 7 (as DJ on the high seas), and the Grand Street News. He has published Dancing and Crying, a colorful and intimate portrait of the last two years in the life of the late Lubavitch Rebbe, (in Hebrew), and two fun books in English: The Cabalist's Daughter: A Novel of Practical Messianic Redemption, and How Would God REALLY Vote.