CHICAGO (AP) — The U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday sued a suburban Chicago community that denied a Muslim group permission to open a place of worship in an office building in a manufacturing district.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago, accuses the city of Des Plaines of violating the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, a 2000 federal law that bars the use of zoning, parking and other ordinances to thwart the practice of someone's religion.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Judaism's Reconstructionist movement announced Wednesday it will allow rabbinical students with non-Jewish partners to become rabbis, a decision that ends years of debate and that officials anticipate will help retain students who go on to become "wonderful rabbis."
The change at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in suburban Philadelphia comes after a faculty vote last week. It revokes a longstanding ban on admitting or graduating students with a non-Jewish partner. Students were allowed to graduate if their partner chose to convert.
