This is the Forward’s coverage of Hasidic Judaism, a sub-group of Haredi Judaism that adheres to the historical traditions of Eastern European Jews, including communicating in Yiddish.
Hasidic
The Latest
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Life When the Mikveh Is an Ordeal of Faith
Mayyim Hayyim Community Mikveh The first time I prepared to immerse in the mikveh, the Jewish ritual bath, I was 18 years old and four days away from my wedding. I sat naked in a white bathtub as the mikveh attendant scrubbed my back with a washcloth and a dollop of baking soda. “You’re lucky…
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Life So a Jewish Woman Got on an El Al Flight …
So a man boards his El Al flight from New York to Tel Aviv, but when he sees that Elana Sztokman is in the seat adjacent to his, he refuses to sit next to her. Was she holding a howling baby? Did she have a hacking cough? A touch of Ebola, maybe? No. The problem,…
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Culture The Hasidim of Brooklyn Are Ready for Their Close-Up
The art at the Brooklyn Public Library branch on Grand Army Plaza just got a little more frum and a little more Japanese. Through February, the library is featuring a black and white photo exhibit depicting the life and rituals of Crown Heights’ Chabad Lubavitch hasidim. The exhibit, entitled “The Hasidim of Crown Heights, Brooklyn;…
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Fast Forward Ex-Gangster Turned Hasidic Rabbi Busted for Impersonating Cop
(JTA) — In 1995, Latin Kings gang member Roberto Eddy Santos was sentenced to prison for multiple violent robberies. Upon his release from Sing Sing Correctional Facility a decade later, Santos emerged a changed man. Literally. Santos reportedly converted to Judaism, changed his name to Avroham Gross, and assumed the identity of a rabbi. Unfortunately,…
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Fast Forward Dutch Campsite Overrun by Supporters of Fugitive Breslov Hasidic Rabbi
A Dutch municipality ordered the eviction of 270 Jews from a camping site that is overcrowded with followers of the fugitive rabbi Eliezer Berland. The order was issued Friday by the island municipality of Texel in the country’s north in connection with the arrival of 300 Orthodox Jews from the Breslov Hassidic sect ahead of…
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Life The Shallowness of Men Who Won’t Sit by Women
Copyright Thinkstock What’s up with these men — my brothers — who refuse to sit next to women — my sisters — on planes and trains, buses and light rails? The situations of frum men refusing to sit next to women lend themselves to a kind of grade-school snickering. Methinks the man doth protest too…
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News What the Day of Atonement Meant to One Hasidic Woman
On the top shelf of our living room buffet sit some of our once-a-year religious accoutrements: a Passover matzo set, a white tablecloth for the sukkah and a white apron. This is not your typical kitchen apron; it is my vase shirtsl — literally, white apron: a small, square-shaped, hand-embroidered cotton apron made of fine…
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News Why Rabbi Ysoscher Katz Left Satmars for Progressive Start-Up Synagogue
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. He grew up among the ultra-Orthodox Satmar Jews in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, in a childhood with rules so strict that playing Frisbee at summer camp was considered a radical move. Today he serves as the spiritual leader of a small, relatively young, progressive Orthodox synagogue…
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