(Reuters) – Hesitant but curious, several Palestinian couples walked into a classroom in Gaza this week to attend the first marriage guidance program in the conservative, Hamas-run enclave. The initiative, backed by three Palestinian ministries, the Islamic University and British-based charity Interpal, is designed to prepare young couples for married life, including religious, legal, medical…
Prohibitions on civil and non-Orthodox weddings in Israel prevent 660,000 Jewish-Israelis — including 364,000 immigrants from the former Soviet Union — from marrying in the Jewish state, according to a nonprofit promoting religious freedom in Israel. Hiddush presented the information in a report Monday to a Knesset conference on “alternatives to marriage through the [Chief]…
Standing under the wedding canopy, dressed in a white tulle gown sprinkled with silvery glitter, I laughed in bliss. I felt young, beautiful, loved and admired. My designer gown, my handpicked white calla lilies, my many friends — everything was perfect. As my husband slipped the ring on my finger, taking me as his wife…
Tamar Epstein, the prominent “chained woman” whose right to remarry under traditional Jewish law was long stymied, may have finally found two Orthodox rabbis willing to help her wed again. But her fate in the broader Jewish community — and the fate of any children she may have — is anything but ensured. Epstein, who…
1. Blessed art Thou, O L-rd our G-d, King of the universe who hast created the fruit of the vine. In my twenties, when weddings should have been ordinary, I avoided them. Back in the 1990s, marriage, to me, was an institution of derision, exclusive of queers and anachronistic for women. Weddings were an artifice,…
Last month, the Religious Courts Appointments committee met all day and into the night behind closed doors to determine who will be a dayan, a religious court judge in Israel. The good news for women is that 22 new dayanim will unlock the religious courts where the high number of judicial vacancies kept women from…
Secular and haredi Orthodox Israelis differ on many things, but there’s one thing both sides agree on: When it comes to religious affairs, the government is failing. That’s one of the findings of an annual survey of Israeli religious identification and attitudes toward religious policy released Friday by Hiddush, a 6-year-old organization that promotes religious…
“We usually don’t take a car,” the yeshiva boy says to the driver, an older Irish man with a hearty laugh and a dapper straw hat. “But the lady was inappropriately attired (he winks at his date), in her heels I mean, so we had to…” The yeshiva boy’s date cuts him off and leans forward to the…
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