Allison Kaplan Sommer is a journalist at Haaretz, host of Haaretz Weekend podcast and co-host of The Promised Podcast.
Allison Kaplan Sommer
By Allison Kaplan Sommer
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Life A Hecksher for Fashion — and an Exposé on Jews in Burqas
Just when you thought the policing of Haredi women’s appearance couldn’t get more extreme — it does. According to Ynet, a kosher certificate for women’s fashions now exists. An ultra-Orthodox body called “the Committee for the Sanctity of the Camp” has begun supervising clothing stores offering such heckshers in the ultra-Orthodox Jerusalem neighborhoods of Mea…
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News Sonia Peres, Intensely Private Wife of Israel’s President, Shunned the Spotlight
In 2008, a small but significant change took place on the mailbox of the Tel Aviv apartment where Sonia Peres, wife of Israel’s president, Shimon Peres, lived quietly, far from the elegant presidential mansion in Jerusalem, until her death January 20. Neighbors — and eventually, the press — noticed that suddenly, about a year after…
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Food Carine Goren: Israel’s Queen Baker
The sunny smiling face of baking in Israel today indisputably belongs to Carine Goren. Combining Martha Stewart’s mastery of pastry with Rachael Ray-style enthusiasm, she dominates the television screens as she prepares delectable desserts on her television show “Sweet Secrets.” That is also the title of her cookbook, which has been a mainstay of the…
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Life Sonia Peres, Reluctant Political Wife, Passes Away
Sonia Peres, wife of Israeli President Shimon Peres, died January 20 as she had lived — quietly and privately, as far as she could get from the spotlight enjoyed by her gregarious, political husband. She was 87. She died in her modest apartment in suburban Ramat Aviv, far from the grandeur of the presidential residence….
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Life Do Chinese ‘Tiger Mothers’ Leave Jewish Mothers in the Dust?
For those of you not plugged into the ongoing chatter in the parenting blogosphere, the buzz over the past week has been the great debate over Chinese so-called Tiger Mothers. It seems that Yale Law Professor Amy Chua’s piece in the Wall Street Journal struck a chord to which no writing or blogging mother could…
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Life Court: Israeli Women To the Back of the Bus … on a Voluntary Basis
Is there such a thing as “voluntary segregation”? Apparently, the Israeli Supreme Court thinks so, according to its disappointing ruling today regarding the ongoing controversy on gender-segregated bus lines in the ultra-Orthodox community. (Previous Sisterhood posts on bus segregation can be found here, here, here, and here.) The bad news for women’s advocacy groups and…
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Life When ‘Pre-Simcha Stress Syndrome’ Overcomes You
I was always certain that I was never going to be one of those mothers. A bar or bat mitzvah isn’t a wedding, after all. The important thing is that your child is reaching the age of maturity and reading from the Torah. It’s not about the color of the napkins, the quality of the…
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Food Kosher Meat Under Fire in Europe
It’s been a busy few months for Shimon Cohen, who heads the lobbying organization Shechita UK. It is his task to advocate for consumers of kosher meat in Great Britain and battle against what he calls “an assault” on kosher slaughter by animal welfare organizations and their allies in the British media. It all began…
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