Jews

Talking about Jews in sports touches a "very central place in the Jewish psyche," says Franklin Foer. He and co-editor Marc Tracy have compiled an "unorthodox hall of fame" celebrating Jewish contributions to American athletics.

At one synagogue in Moscow, Hasidic Jews have been working for years to rebuild their numbers. For some, including the rabbi, it has largely been a self-guided journey.

Roosevelt, N.J., born in the economic tumult of the 1930s, was designed to be a utopia: Bauhaus-style ranch homes built around the communal industry and agriculture. It was one of 99 cities the federal government built. On the town's 75th birthday, the results of that experiment are mixed.

Violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman compares Cantor Yitzchak Meir Helfgot to some of the giants of opera. Helfgot is the chief cantor at Manhattan's Park East Synagogue and has sung at the Metropolitan Opera. Now he and Perlman have recorded an album together that goes back to a time when cantors were opera stars. Jon Kalish reports.

A debate is growing among Israel's secular Jewish majority over the question of whether to circumcise newborn sons. The vast majority still chooses to have the procedure done, but voices of dissent are on the rise.

The revelation forced him out of the party and has triggered some soul searching.

Conservative men from many religions demand that women dress modestly so the men can avoid feeling tempted. Some ultra-Orthodox Jewish men in Israel are selling special glasses that blur men's vision so they can't see women clearly.

Orthodox Jews around the world have been reading the Talmud, cover to cover, for almost seven and a half years straight. Day by day, they read each of the more than 2,000 pages of the holy book, and this past week, they finished the last page together in celebration.

Forbes in Israel has published a first-of-its-kind ranking of the country's richest rabbis. The estimated wealth of the top-ranked rabbi? $335 million. Some self-styled Jewish mystics attract wealthy, high-profile followers who donate huge sums in exchange for blessings and advice.

Mitt Romney is in Israel this weekend, in part to drum up support from pro-Israel groups living in the United States. The Jewish vote makes up only 4 percent of the American electorate, but it's where those votes are located that has both sides spending millions to woo them.