Chabad, also known as Lubavitch, Habad and Chabad-Lubavitch, is an Orthodox Jewish Hasidic dynasty. Chabad is one of the world's best-known Hasidic movements, particularly for its outreach activities. It is one of the largest Hasidic groups and Jewish religious organizations in the world. Unlike most Haredi groups, which are self-segregating, Chabad operates mainly in the wider world and caters to secularized Jews.
Conversion to Judaism is the process by which non-Jews adopt the Jewish religion and become members of the Jewish ethnoreligious community. It thus resembles both conversion to other religions and naturalization. The procedure and requirements for conversion depend on the sponsoring denomination. Furthermore, a conversion done in accordance with one Jewish denomination is not a guarantee of recognition by another denomination. Normally, though not always, the conversions performed by more stringent denominations are recognized by less stringent ones, but not the other way around. A formal conversion is also sometimes undertaken by individuals whose Jewish ancestry is questioned or uncertain, even if they were raised Jewish, but may not actually be considered Jews according to traditional Jewish law.
"Who is a Jew?" is a basic question about Jewish identity and considerations of Jewish self-identification. The question pertains to ideas about Jewish personhood, which have cultural, ethnic, religious, political, genealogical, and personal dimensions. Orthodox Judaism and Conservative Judaism follow Jewish law (Halakha), deeming people to be Jewish if their mothers are Jewish or if they underwent a halakhic conversion. Reform Judaism and Reconstructionist Judaism accept both matrilineal and patrilineal descent as well as conversion. Karaite Judaism predominantly follows patrilineal descent as well as conversion.
The Crown Heights riot was a race riot that took place from August 19 to August 21, 1991, in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York City. Black residents attacked Orthodox Jewish residents, damaged their homes, and looted businesses. The riots began on August 19, 1991, after two children of Guyanese immigrants were unintentionally struck by a driver running a red light while following the motorcade of Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the leader of Chabad, a Jewish religious movement. One child died and the second was severely injured.
African-American Jews are people who are both African American and Jewish. African-American Jews may be either Jewish from birth or converts to Judaism. Many African-American Jews are of mixed heritage, having both non-Jewish African-American and non-Black Jewish ancestors. Many African-American Jews identify as Jews of color, but some do not. Black Jews from Africa, such as the Beta Israel from Ethiopia, may or may not identify as African-American Jews.
The Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism is the organizational branch of Progressive Judaism in Israel, and a member organization of the World Union for Progressive Judaism. It currently has 40 communities and congregations around the state of Israel, 13 of which are new congregations – referred to as U'faratztah communities – and two kibbutzim, Yahel and Lotan.
Jewish feminism is a movement that seeks to make the religious, legal, and social status of Jewish women equal to that of Jewish men in Judaism. Feminist movements, with varying approaches and successes, have opened up within all major branches of the Jewish religion.
My Yiddish Momme McCoy is a documentary made in 1991 by Bob Giges about his 90-year-old Jewish grandmother who fell in love and married an Irish-Catholic named Bernie McCoy. Interfaith marriage has always been an issue in the Jewish community, but in the early twentieth-century it was particularly taboo. My Yiddish Momme McCoy addresses the prejudices the couple faced and the challenges that their divergent cultures presented them.
Orthodox Jewish outreach, often referred to as Kiruv or Qiruv, is the collective work or movement of Orthodox Judaism that reaches out to non-observant Jews to encourage belief in God and life according to Jewish law. The process of a Jew becoming more observant of Orthodox Judaism is called teshuva making the "returnee" a baal teshuva. Orthodox Jewish outreach has worked to enhance the rise of the baal teshuva movement.
Capers C. Funnye Jr. is an African-American Conservative rabbi, who leads the 200-member Beth Shalom B'nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation of Chicago, Illinois, assisted by rabbis Avraham Ben Israel and Joshua V. Salter.
Jews comprise approximately 9% of New York City's population, making the Jewish community the largest in the world outside of Israel. As of 2016, 1.1 million Jews lived in the five boroughs of New York City, and over 1.75 million Jews lived in New York State overall.
Elke Reva Sudin is a Jewish-American painter, illustrator, fashion designer, and lecturer. In 2010, her Hipsters and Hassids painting series premiered in New York City, comparing and contrasting her Hasidic Jewish origins and hipster Brooklyn cultures. She founded the live sketching company Drawing Booth in 2014, and is also a founder of Jewish Art Now. In 2023, she launched a collection of luxury scarves with her own custom designs.
Harold Milton Jacobs was a Jewish and civic leader who headed a number of American Jewish organizations and institutions, and also played a significant role in New York City educational affairs.
Sephardic Bnei Anusim is a modern term which is used to define the contemporary Christian descendants of an estimated quarter of a million 15th-century Sephardic Jews who were coerced or forced to convert to Catholicism during the 14th and 15th century in Spain and Portugal. The vast majority of conversos remained in Spain and Portugal, and their descendants, who number in the millions, live in both of these countries. The small minority of conversos who did emigrate normally chose to emigrate to destinations where Sephardic communities already existed, particularly to the Ottoman Empire and North Africa, but also to more tolerant cities in Europe, where many of them immediately reverted to Judaism. In theory, very few of them would have traveled to Latin America with colonial expeditions, as only those Spaniards who could certify that they had no recent Muslim or Jewish ancestry were supposed to be allowed to travel to the New World. Recent genetic studies suggest that the Sephardic ancestry present in Latin American populations arrived at the same time as the initial colonization, which suggests that significant numbers of recent converts were able to travel to the new world and contribute to the gene pool of modern Latin American populations despite an official prohibition on them doing so. In addition, later arriving Spanish immigrants would have themselves contributed additional converso ancestry in some parts of Latin America.
Abby Chava Stein is an American transgender author, activist, blogger, model, speaker, and rabbi. She is the first openly transgender woman raised in a Hasidic community, and is a direct descendant of Hasidic Judaism's founder, the Baal Shem Tov. In 2015, she founded one of the first support groups nationwide for trans people with an Orthodox Jewish background who have left Orthodox Judaism.
Sandra Lawson is a rabbi and the first Director of Racial Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Reconstructing Judaism. She previously served as Associate Chaplain for Jewish Life at Elon University. Lawson became the first openly gay, female, and black rabbi in the world in 2018. She is a veteran, vegan, sociologist, personal trainer, food activist, weightlifter, author and musician.
Isaiah Rothstein is an American Orthodox Jewish rabbi, author, musician and public speaker. He previously served as the Spiritual and Experiential Educator at Carmel Academy of Greenwich in Greenwich, Connecticut. Rothstein is best known for his essay "Color Erases, Color Paints" which generated extensive debate within the Jewish community about race and diversity.
Yaacov Behrman is an American rabbi, the Director of Operation Survival, a project of the National Committee for the Furtherance of Jewish Education (N.C.F.J.E), and a liaison for Chabad Headquarters. Behrman is also the founder of the Jewish Future Alliance, and a member of Community Board 9. In 2021, Mayor Eric Adams named Behrman to his mayoral transition team.
Black Jews in New York City comprise one of the largest communities of Black Jews in the United States. Black Jews have lived in New York City since colonial times, with organized Black-Jewish and Black Hebrew Israelite communities emerging during the early 20th century. Black Jewish and Black Hebrew Israelite communities have historically been centered in Harlem, Brooklyn, The Bronx, and Queens. The Commandment Keepers movement originated in Harlem, while the Black Orthodox Jewish community is centered in Brooklyn. New York City is home to four historically Black synagogues with roots in the Black Hebrew Israelite community. A small Beta Israel (Ethiopian-Jewish) community also exists in New York City, many of whom emigrated from Israel. Black Hebrew Israelites are not considered Jewish by the New York Board of Rabbis, an organization representing mainstream Rabbinic Judaism.