Life

Offbeat Israel: The Great-Great Grandfather of Jewish Law

By Nathan Jeffay May 28, 2009

A broad alliance of people, from politicians to market traders, are worried for the heath of Israel’s less well-off, as reported in today’s edition of the Forward. Just as that row brews, we learn that the health of a staggering number of Israelis is suffering due to financial factors.

According to research released by the Israel Medical Association, 21% of people who live in the north of the country and 17% of those in areas of economic disadvantage said they forewent buying medications because of their cost.

Some 21% of Northern residents — and 15% of Israelis living in a low socioeconomic locality — passed on some form of medical care for their children for financial reasons. One in two people who forewent medical care due to financial factors said that their health had declined in the past year.

Yiddish was once the nemesis of the Zionist enterprise, but this week it entered its inner sanctum. The Knesset held its first ever Yiddish Culture Day on Tuesday, during which lawmakers were given Yiddish phrase books, treated to a Yiddish concert, and asked to take part in discussions about how to preserve the language. Ironic though, that it took longer for the Knesset to give a platform to Yiddish than to German — just over a year ago German Chancellor Angela Merkel addressed the chamber in German.

When Rabbi Yosef Sholom Elyashiv, the most influential authority on Jewish law in Israel (if not the world) is in the news, it’s usually because of a new prohibition he is instituting or because of the political power he wields as the mentor of religious lawmakers. But now he is the subject of a cutesy human-interest fascination. He has just become a great-great grandfather. Hug Sameach!

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO