{"id":186,"date":"2010-06-30T11:58:00","date_gmt":"2010-06-30T11:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/2010\/06\/jews-on-first-newsweeks-influential-rabbis-elena-kagan-gay-jews-and-more.html"},"modified":"2010-06-30T11:58:00","modified_gmt":"2010-06-30T11:58:00","slug":"jews-on-first-newsweeks-influential-rabbis-elena-kagan-gay-jews-and-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/06\/jews-on-first-newsweeks-influential-rabbis-elena-kagan-gay-jews-and-more.html","title":{"rendered":"Jews Making News: Newsweek&#8217;s Most Influential Rabbis, SCOTUS Nominee Elena Kagan, Gay Jews and More"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is shaping up to be one of those religion news weeks where I have trouble remembering that Jewish Americans make up less than 3 percent of the U.S. population&#8230; even less, if you&#8217;re <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jewishfederations.org\/page.aspx?id=33650\">only counting those who attend synagogue more than a few times a year<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Yesterday, I wrote about Newsweek&#8217;s fourth annual (and admittedly &#8220;unscientific&#8221; and &#8220;mischievous&#8221;) <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/2010\/06\/28\/the-50-most-influential-rabbis-in-america.html\">50 Most Influential Rabbis list<\/a>, for Religion News Service. What stood out for me this year was <a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/b18QCi\">the&nbsp;36th place ranking of Orthodox &#8220;Rabba&#8221; Sara Hurwitz<\/a>, given that the Orthodox clergy organization&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.forward.com\/articles\/127612\/\">doesn&#8217;t accept the ordination of women<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Another story I&#8217;m working on relates to&nbsp;the<a href=\"http:\/\/www.jewishinclusion.com\/\"> historic gathering of LGBT Jews<\/a> that just wrapped up in San Francisco. <a href=\"http:\/\/religion.blogs.cnn.com\/2010\/06\/29\/my-take-jewish-lgbt-leaders-gather-to-build-a-movement\/\">Two gay Jewish community leaders blogged about this for CNN <\/a>today &#8212; check it out, and let me know what other questions you have for this emerging movement.<\/p>\n<p>Last but not least for this Belief Beat edition of Jews on First, JTA has been reporting on&nbsp;Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan&#8217;s nod to her Jewish roots<a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-srv\/package\/supremecourt\/2010candidates\/elena-kagan.html?hpid=artslot\"> during her confirmation hearings<\/a>, including<a href=\"http:\/\/www.jta.org\/news\/article\/2010\/06\/29\/2739830\/kagan-explains-barak-remarks\"> eating Chinese food on Christmas<\/a>. (Speaking from personal experience, this is not&nbsp;just a&nbsp;Jewish tradition, at least not in the New York!)<\/p>\n<p>For more Jewish news, check out <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jta.org\/\">JTA<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.forward.com\/\">The Forward<\/a>, Beliefnet&#8217;s blogs by&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/rabbishmuleyunleashed\/\">Rabbi Shmuley Boteach<\/a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/windowsanddoors\/\">Rabbi Brad Hirschfield<\/a>&nbsp;(44th on the Newsweek rankings this year)&nbsp;and the recently award-winning<a href=\"http:\/\/www.jewishjournal.com\/thegodblog\/\"> God Blog <\/a>over at the L.A.-based Jewish Journal. <\/p>\n<p><span class=\"Apple-style-span\"><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">*<a href=\"http:\/\/feedburner.google.com\/fb\/a\/mailverify?uri=beliefnet\/beliefbeat\">Click here to<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><strong>subscribe to Belief Beat<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/strong><\/a>and<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/beliefbeat\">click here to<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><strong>follow Belief Beat on Twitter<\/strong><\/a>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is shaping up to be one of those religion news weeks where I have trouble remembering that Jewish Americans make up less than 3 percent of the U.S. population&#8230; even less, if you&#8217;re only counting those who attend synagogue more than a few times a year. Yesterday, I wrote about Newsweek&#8217;s fourth annual (and&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Jews Making News: Newsweek&#039;s Most Influential Rabbis, SCOTUS Nominee Elena Kagan, Gay Jews and More - Belief Beat<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/06\/jews-on-first-newsweeks-influential-rabbis-elena-kagan-gay-jews-and-more.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jews Making News: Newsweek&#039;s Most Influential Rabbis, SCOTUS Nominee Elena Kagan, Gay Jews and More - Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This is shaping up to be one of those religion news weeks where I have trouble remembering that Jewish Americans make up less than 3 percent of the U.S. population&#8230; even less, if you&#8217;re only counting those who attend synagogue more than a few times a year. Yesterday, I wrote about Newsweek&#8217;s fourth annual (and&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/06\/jews-on-first-newsweeks-influential-rabbis-elena-kagan-gay-jews-and-more.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-06-30T11:58:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nicole Neroulias\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Jews Making News: Newsweek's Most Influential Rabbis, SCOTUS Nominee Elena Kagan, Gay Jews and More - Belief Beat","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/06\/jews-on-first-newsweeks-influential-rabbis-elena-kagan-gay-jews-and-more.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Jews Making News: Newsweek's Most Influential Rabbis, SCOTUS Nominee Elena Kagan, Gay Jews and More - Belief Beat","og_description":"This is shaping up to be one of those religion news weeks where I have trouble remembering that Jewish Americans make up less than 3 percent of the U.S. population&#8230; even less, if you&#8217;re only counting those who attend synagogue more than a few times a year. Yesterday, I wrote about Newsweek&#8217;s fourth annual (and&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/06\/jews-on-first-newsweeks-influential-rabbis-elena-kagan-gay-jews-and-more.html","og_site_name":"Belief Beat","article_published_time":"2010-06-30T11:58:00+00:00","author":"Nicole Neroulias","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/06\/jews-on-first-newsweeks-influential-rabbis-elena-kagan-gay-jews-and-more.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/06\/jews-on-first-newsweeks-influential-rabbis-elena-kagan-gay-jews-and-more.html","name":"Jews Making News: Newsweek's Most Influential Rabbis, SCOTUS Nominee Elena Kagan, Gay Jews and More - Belief Beat","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-06-30T11:58:00+00:00","dateModified":"2010-06-30T11:58:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/06\/jews-on-first-newsweeks-influential-rabbis-elena-kagan-gay-jews-and-more.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/06\/jews-on-first-newsweeks-influential-rabbis-elena-kagan-gay-jews-and-more.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/06\/jews-on-first-newsweeks-influential-rabbis-elena-kagan-gay-jews-and-more.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Jews Making News: Newsweek&#8217;s Most Influential Rabbis, SCOTUS Nominee Elena Kagan, Gay Jews and More"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/","name":"Belief Beat","description":"BeliefBeat - Nicole Neroulias","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b","name":"Nicole Neroulias","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/caf\/caf1ad99f5fc2a063b8e935cf82f65fdx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/caf\/caf1ad99f5fc2a063b8e935cf82f65fdx96.jpg","caption":"Nicole Neroulias"},"description":"Nicole Neroulias is a correspondent for Religion News Service, a secular news and photo service devoted to unbiased coverage of religion and ethics. A graduate of Cornell University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, she has previously written for The New York Times and other media outlets. She and her family live in Seattle.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/author\/nneroulias"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}