Eating disorders are famously misunderstood. Earlier this week, The New York Times shed some light on them in an article detailing the high rates of these illnesses among American Orthodox Jews. The writer, Roni Caryn Rabin, reports on the various pressures Orthodox girls face, and looks at whether eating disorders might be the result of…
Elana Maryles Sztokman, in her recent Sisterhood blog post titled “The Case Against the Sheitel,” seems to be mistaken in her critique of the wigs that many married Orthodox women choose to wear. Sheitels are a model of how Jewish law is supposed to function and change. We will know that the Arab world has…
“Do you like the blond better? With or without the ponytail?” Wig-shopping is the new initiation into religious life for women, writes Tali Farkash, a Haredi columnist for Ynet who alternates between defending religious life and kvetching about it. If women used to accompany brides to the mikveh in order to welcome them ritualistically into…
For many weeks, thousands of people have massed in public squares across the Arab world, protesting for democracy. Many of the largest gatherings have occurred on Friday, Islam’s day of public prayer, sometimes stretching past sunset and continuing the following day. The protests have drawn young and old, religious and secular, men and women. But…
I come from a family where halacha is championed alongside the freedom and power of the individual. It is a hard balance to forge, and it is one that comes with contradictions and hurdles. Recently in the news was the story of a Capitol Hill staffer who would not grant his wife a get, or…
If Julian Assange were an observant Jew, would he still have publicized his WikiLeaks? Aside from shaking up the world of foreign policy, the flood of diplomatic cables that Assange released November 28 has caused a corresponding flood of questions about the leaks’ morality and legality. Assange’s defenders claim that he’s making the world a…
“Valentine operatives,” “honey traps” and “honey pots” have devilishly sweet names for a reason: The phrases refer to those men and women who seduce enemy operatives to gain key information or facilitate their capture. And according to a new ruling by Rabbi Ari Shvat, sleeping with the enemy goes “above and beyond” and is a…
Readers sent in some illuminating responses to my pre-Passover Good Fences column about a recent family Bar Mitzvah ceremony where the rabbi included the child’s non-Jewish father in the service in what struck me as an unusually and admirably welcoming fashion. This first reply came from a rabbi in Southern California, who makes an important…
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