Welcome to 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
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Life When Reb Zalman Met the Dalai Lama
The Dalai Lama speaks during a visit to Germany. / Getty Images It was, and will always remain, one of the most mysteriously significant experiences of my life. In 1990, eight of us travelled to Dharmsala, India at the invitation of his Holiness the Dalai Lama under the auspices of the Nathan Cummings Foundation. The…
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News Reb Zalman Married Counter Culture to Hasidic Judaism
Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, one of the important Jewish innovators in postwar America, inspiration to a generation and ecumenical spiritualist, died on July 3 aged 89. A tireless organizer and spiritual architect, Schachter-Shalomi single-handedly created a new form of Jewish practice and spirituality known as Jewish Renewal, founded on the idea of Gaia consciousness: the notion…
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News Reb Zalman, the Prophet of Both-And
I last spent time with Reb Zalman a month ago, during Shavuot at the Isabella Freedman Retreat Center. He looked and felt like all of his 89 years — and he told us as much. As in “The December Project,” his collaboration with Sara Davidson on the late years of life, Reb Zalman was entirely…
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Life When SCOTUS and Hasidic Courts Look Same
Adam Jones / Global Photo Archive On Monday, the Supreme Court took the position of so many dayanim (a judge in a religious court, but in the Hasidic world, also a man who rules authoritatively on everyday halachic questions) and rabbis across the world in symbolically declining women reproductive autonomy. (I use the word “symbolically”…
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Life When Torah Is Too Hot for Schoolgirls
Lukas Kranach the Elder (JTA) — For some Hasidim, the Torah is too hot to handle. A recently published Bible study guide in use in a Hasidic village in suburban New York omits certain risque passages and entire passages of the Book of Genesis, according to Israeli scholar and blogger David Assaf of Tel Aviv…
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Fast Forward Rabbi Rejects Apology From Bleach-Tossing Attacker
A rabbi who advocates against child sex abusers refused to accept an apology from a Hasidic man, the son of an accused abuser, who threw bleach in the rabbis’s face. Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg told Brooklyn state Supreme Court Judge Joseph Gubbay, who asked Meilech Schnitzler to make the apology in court on Wednesday, that he…
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Opinion Who Says Hasidim Have ‘Dead Eyes’?
Hasidim walk through Williamsburg / All photos courtesy of Mo Gelber Pro tip for anyone considering a tour of Hasidic Williamsburg: It’s not that big a deal. You do not need to wear a hat, broad-brimmed or otherwise. You may visit during the week, and you may visit on weekends. You may bring along with…
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Fast Forward Black Fashion Student Sues Shomrim Hasidic Security Patrol Over Brooklyn Beating
A gay black man who says he was beaten by a group of Hasidic men in Brooklyn sued five of his alleged assailants and a local Jewish volunteer security patrol. Taj Patterson, 22, who was brutally beaten on Dec. 1 in the Williamsburg section, filed the lawsuit Monday in Brooklyn Supreme Court against the five…
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Fast Forward Their Pacific Palisades synagogue is standing, but all three rabbis lost their homes
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News Scoop: Heritage Foundation plans to ‘identify and target’ Wikipedia editors
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News ‘Do you have the Torahs?’ Synagogue races LA wildfire to rescue its past and future
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Opinion Why is Netanyahu poised to OK a ceasefire that’s favorable to Hamas? One word: Trump
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Fast Forward Trump taps Mel Gibson, actor-director with record of antisemitism, as ‘special ambassador’ to Hollywood
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Fast Forward From the ashes, a forgotten mural — and a new mystery for a Pasadena synagogue
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Yiddish World Psychologist, writer and Yiddish culture activist Michael Fox has died
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Fast Forward Reporters castigating Israel and US support ejected from Blinken’s final press briefing
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