When traditional Jewish law, or Halacha, hampers observance for congregants with disabilities, rabbis face tough questions. At a recent conference, Orthodox rabbinical students in Manhattan grappled with disability-related dilemmas. What would you decide? Step into the rabbi’s shoes and let us know what you think in the comments section. Question 1 Your impoverished and shrinking…
Rachel never had much of a problem conceiving children: one, two, three, four, five. But when it came to child No. 6, Rachel (who asked that we identify her by only a pseudonym) and her husband tried and tried. Five years passed, but no child came. “You have a frum issue,” Dr. Richard Grazi told…
Democratic State Rep. Lisa Brown won some local notoriety, and a temporary speaking ban from the Republican-controlled Michigan House of Representatives for invoking “my vagina” during a passionate floor speech in defense of abortion rights Wednesday. But for all the notice it garnered, Brown’s bodily personalization of the issue was just part of her broader…
Rahel Berkovits is an Israeli feminist, a teacher of Jewish texts, and a founder of Shira Hadasha, which bills itself as an “Orthodox Feminist Congregation in Jerusalem.” Her recent book, “A Daughter’s Recitation of Mourner’s Kaddish,” delves into classical sources, and argues that under Jewish law women are permitted to recite Mourner’s Kaddish. She spoke…
'This conversation is difficult because it involves facing death.'
Whatever we may think of advertising — a capitalist tool, an agent of manipulation, a bravura display of wit and verbal dexterity, the stuff of an irresistible television show such as “Mad Men” — it’s hard to conceive of modern life without it. In the absence of advertisements, whether print, electronic or digital, our newspapers,…
Few topics are as fraught and complicated, or as tempting to oversimplify, as the encounter between religion and state. Take Israel. The balance of religion and state seems to be particularly imperiled for a variety of cultural and political reasons. Some Israelis think the problem has to do with an increase in religious commitment itself….
A Florida state bill targeting a supposed threat from Islamic law may instead end up preventing Orthodox couples from using Jewish religious courts, or batei din, to arbitrate their divorces, according to legal specialists and some Jewish groups. The Application of Foreign Law in Certain Cases bill is considered likely to pass the Senate before…
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