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The Rise and Fall of Calcutta Jews
“Jews in India?” people exclaim when the concept is mentioned. With fewer than 30 members of the community left there, it’s sometimes hard to recall that a place like Kolkata, formerly known as Calcutta, was once the site of a thriving Jewish community. Jael Silliman, a scholar and, at age 59, the youngest of this…
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Political Correctness Doesn’t Make Speech More Meaningful
Not too long ago I found myself in an argument — civilly conducted, I must say — with a friend of one of my daughters, a young man of emphatically liberal views who teaches sociology at a college in Israel. In the name of gender equality, he said, he was careful to address his classes…
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Women of Wall Slip Torah Scroll Into Western Wall Bat Mitzvah
(Haaretz) — Defying regulations by Western Wall rabbinic authorities, members of Women of the Wall smuggled a tiny Torah scroll into the women’s section of the Kotel Friday morning, in what the feminist prayer group said was the first reading from the Torah by women at the holy site in 25 years. The tiny scroll,…
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How a Stunned Synagogue Faces Up to Sins of Rabbi Barry Freundel
There is no playbook guiding Modern Orthodox congregations on what to do when their rabbi is accused of abusing congregants and of violating their privacy at the most holy and intimate of moments. But when the venerable Washington congregation Kesher Israel got the news on October 14 that its spiritual leader of more than 26…
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Anti-Abuse Activist Joey Diangello Dies of Overdose, But His Legacy Lives On
As a teenager, Joey Diangello, a self-described survivor of child sex abuse, left the insular Satmar Hasidic community of Williamsburg, in Brooklyn, where he’d grown up and plunged into the world of heavy metal music. There, Diangello, who wore mascara and heavy metal T-shirts and sported long, black hair, found some measure of comfort in…
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Rabbis Barry Freundel and Leib Tropper Ensnared in Scandals Tied to Conversions
A prominent Orthodox rabbi is disgraced, accused of sexual misconduct and inappropriate behavior towards converts. That may sound like the scandal now toppling Barry Freundel, the prominent Washington, D.C. rabbi who pled not guilty on October 15 to allegations that he secretly videotaped women showering in the antechamber of his synagogue’s mikveh, or ritual bath….
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Stav Shaffir, Ex-Protest Leader, Keeps Eye on the Shekels
Having coffee with Stav Shaffir is little different from meeting up with other 20-somethings in Tel Aviv. She rushes into the cafe a few minutes late, glances repeatedly at her phone and complains about high rents and an out-of-touch government. It’s hard, she says, being the youngest woman in a workplace full of older men….
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Three-Quarter of Israeli Jews Oppose Palestinian State on ’67 Lines, Poll Finds
Three-quarters of Israeli Jews oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders, a new poll found. Some 75 percent also are against ceding control of the Jordan Valley and 76 percent oppose the division of Jerusalem, according to a survey conducted last week for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, a research…
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German Kosher Butcher Sells Treyf for Years
A kosher butcher in Frankfurt, Germany, admitted in court that he sold doctored tons of non-kosher meat for years as glatt kosher. A verdict is expected next month in Frankfurt District Court in the case against the owners of the now-bankrupt Aviv kosher butcher store. Leslie W., 48, and his partner Akiwa H., 56, are…
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Yeshiva U. Reports First Sexual Assault On Campus in 12 Years — But Says Little Else
For the first time in 12 years, Yeshiva University has reported a sexual assault on campus. Reporting such a crime might seem a breakthrough for the university, which has been accused of covering up abuse in the past, but the school still refuses to say how it investigates student allegations of sexual assault. Nor will…
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Get Your Rosaries Off My Ovaries
The Seesaw is a new kind of advice column in which a broad range of columnists will address the real life issues faced by interfaith couples and families. You can email your own questions, which will remain anonymous, to: [email protected] Having the Abortion Talk With My Catholic In-laws I am Jewish and a longtime pro-choice…
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