NEW YORK – Spurred by a major grant from one of the largest Jewish foundations, the rabbinical seminaries of three major synagogue movements are forging a groundbreaking partnership to train Jewish educators.

The Jim Joseph Foundation announced Monday that it was giving a combined $33 million to the Reform movement’s Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute for Religion, the Modern Orthodox Yeshiva University, and the Conservative movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary of America.

The grant is aimed at helping the three seminaries attract more teachers to the field of Jewish education and offer them better training.

The e-mail came from a news source in Europe, who got it from a guy in New York, who got it from a couple in Los Angeles, who got it from a guy who “just received this from my friend in Israel, who moves in high circles, who heard it from a consultant to the United States who meets once a month with the president in the White House. He is in the know. This is what actually has happened with the relationship with Israel and the U.S.A. and it is not pretty.”

What followed was a litany of “crimes” by the U.S. administration against Israel. Some of them were based on kernels of truth that had been convoluted into “reports” designed to galvanize people into action by injecting them with the fear factor. One accusation was exaggerated truth. Others were patently ridiculous, some were oversimplifications of complicated diplomatic matters that are not controlled by anyone in the United States, and some were outright lies.

NEW YORK (JTA) — Brandeis has sparked a controversy in the university community with its selection of Israel’s ambassador to Washington as its commencement speaker.

Last week’s announcement of Michael Oren as this year’s keynoter has evoked a spectrum of responses in campus publications and online forums ranging from enthusiastic support to wary apprehension to outrage.

Neither Oren nor the suburban Boston university are strangers to such controversies.

It’s no secret that Jews are often thought to be, well, thrifty, but racial slurs and comedy routines aside, it’s not the kind of thing we discuss much. In her new book, “In Cheap We Trust: The Story of a Misunderstood American Virtue,” Lauren Weber takes on the stereotype and its evolution from Shakespeare’s Shylock to 18th-century dime novels featuring characters named “Grabbenstein” and “Swindlebaum” to the figure of the “international banker.” Weber recently spoke to Tablet Magazine about some of the stereotypes that have become associated with Jews and money — and about her skinflint of a father.

WASHINGTON – For the Obama administration, reviving the Gaza Strip is like a multimillion-dollar version of whack-a-mole: Everywhere you slam down cash, Hamas pops up. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has pledged that the money, promised in the wake of the devastating December-January Gaza war, won’t reach the terrorist group controlling the strip.

“We have worked with the Palestinian Authority to install safeguards that will ensure that our funding is only used where, and for whom, it is intended, and does not end up in the wrong hands,” she said at a funders conference earlier this month in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el Sheik.

Not to be outdone by their Conservative colleagues, Orthodox groups on both coasts will soon be vetting the ethical standards of businesses serving the Jewish communities.

In New York, Uri L’Tzedek, a social justice group founded last year by rabbinical students at the liberal Orthodox Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, is set to launch its Tav HaYosher, or ethical seal. The seal will be awarded to kosher restaurants in New York City that treat their workers fairly. “Yosher” is a Hebrew word meaning honesty or straightness.

NEW YORK – A liberal Orthodox rabbinical school’s response to the controversial action of one of its graduates highlights the challenge facing progressives in the Modern Orthodox community.

WASHINGTON – Rosh HaShanah: a time for contemplation? Of course.

A time for Jewish lawmakers to stop and reconsider how to save Wall Street from itself? Makes sense — four Jewish lawmakers changed their votes over the holiday.

A time to heed the Jewish supplications of Newt Gingrich?

Yes, it got that weird last week.