Haredi
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Life Open Orthodoxy’s Name Game Doesn’t Make It Any More Orthodox
I never did like the name “Open Orthodoxy”. It doesn’t take a Talmudic genius to see its not-so-subtle insinuation, that the rest of the Orthodox world is somehow…“closed.” Closed, though, to what? To beliefs at variance with those of the Judaism of the ages? Well, yes, that’s the definition of Orthodoxy. Closed to innovations rejected…
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Life Orthodox Resistance to Trump Grows — In Secret Social Media Groups
Ever since the election, as an ultra-Orthodox Jewish woman, I was beginning to feel more and more isolated. In my politically conservative community, too few around me took issue with the saga unfolding in Washington, the racist slogans and shocking vulgarity to emerge from the White House. A few family members (all Hasidim) were my…
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Opinion Is It Wrong To Want Ultra-Orthodox Jews To Stay Out Of Your Town?
Recently, residents of Mahwah, New Jersey, noticed utility trucks driving around town, attaching strange-looking PVC piping to telephone poles. Soon they learned their purpose: the establishment of an eruv, a mysterious boundary that makes it possible for Torah-observant Jews to carry objects on the Sabbath. It’s a crucial step in making a neighborhood inviting to…
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Life How the Term ‘Ultra-Orthodox’ Is An Overgeneralization — And Why It Matters
One of my biggest pet peeves about how the media often portrays Orthodox Jews is its use of the overarching term, “ultra-Orthodox.” The photos that accompany articles about “ultra-Orthodox” Jews are typically of women in thick stockings, short wigs and little hats pushing strollers in busy intersections in places that look like Boro Park. Men…
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Fast Forward Formerly Ultra-Orthodox Millennials Get Special ‘Off The Derech’ Moishe House
Two not-for-profits, Moishe House and Footsteps, are teaming up to create a center for formerly ultra-Orthodox millennial Jews. Moishe House is known widely for subsidizing co-living spaces for residents who use the spaces as hubs for the local twentysomething Jewish community. The residents of the new Moishe House Crown Heights are all Jews who are…
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Fast Forward Ultra-Orthodox Matchmakers Will Get $4,000 For Pairing ‘Damaged Goods’ Over 21
The grand rabbi, or “rebbe,” of the Boyan sect of ultra-Orthodox Jews is offering $4,000 to anyone who suggests a successful match between “older singles” in their community, the Israeli news site Arutz Sheva reported Wednesday. The “older” designation applies to single men over the age of 23 and single women over the age of…
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Life Orthodox Survivor Of Sex Abuse Exposes Traumas In New Film
You wouldn’t believe she’s only 20. With no film schooling or experience, Baltimore native Miryam Rabinowitz has thrown herself into a film project that tells the story of sexual abuse — or rather, its lonely, complex aftermath. “Still Feeling” tells the story of Yuval Goldenberg, a young woman who was abused during her childhood in…
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News Orthodox Jews Divide Over Questions Of Whether Yoga, Crystals, Reiki Are Kosher
An Orthodox community is in the midst of a philosophical crisis that’s pitting hard-line rationalists against New Age-leaning mystics — and the publication of a new book by a well-known rabbi has exposed and intensified the struggle. In his recently published “Alternative Medicine in Halakhah,” Lakewood, New Jersey rabbi Rephoel Szmerla gives Jewish legal justifications…
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Fast Forward Why the Antisemitism Awareness Act now has a religious liberty clause to protect ‘Jews killed Jesus’ statements
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News School Israel trip turns ‘terrifying’ for LA students attacked by Israeli teens
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Culture Cardinals are Catholic, not Jewish — so why do they all wear yarmulkes?
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Music After decades of waiting, we’re finally getting a Bob Dylan-Barbra Streisand duet
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Yiddish World A photo of my bubbe when Jewish stores still had Yiddish signs
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