This is the Forward’s coverage of mikvahs, Jewish ritual baths.
Mikvah
The Latest
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Fast Forward 400-Year-Old Mikveh Unearthed on German Town’s ‘Jews Lane’
Archaeologists discovered a centuries-old mikvah underneath a vaulted cellar in the former East Germany. The ritual bath in the town of Schmalkalden is located near “Judengasse,” or “Jews’ Lane,” where a 17th-century synagogue stood until it was destroyed in the Kristallnacht pogrom exactly 77 years ago on Monday, the day the discovery was announced. The…
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Life Why I Choose to Forgive Rabbi Barry Freundel on Yom Kippur
His handwriting is terrible. He signs the letter, addressed from the D.C. jail, “Barry Freundel.” It makes me wonder if he always signed off that way, or if he recently stripped himself of the title “Rabbi.” I search through my Gmail inbox, scanning the past three years of correspondence, starting from when I began seriously…
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Life Should ‘Peeping Rabbi’ Barry Freundel Be Forgiven on Yom Kippur?
It was an impressive apology – even considering the fact that Rabbi Barry Freundel has been penning elaborate sermons about repentance and forgiveness for decades, and that, since he was sitting in solitary confinement in a Washington, DC jail when he penned his missive, he had plenty of time to refine it. “No matter how…
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Life Washington Jewish Women Reclaim Mikvah with Mural
(Washington Jewish Week via JTA) – When prominent Washington rabbi Barry Freundel was arrested last year for secretly videotaping dozens of women using the mikvah adjacent to his Orthodox synagogue, the sense of sacredness of the ritual of mikvah immersion was shattered for some local Jewish women. Local artist Rena Fruchter recently spearheaded a community…
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Fast Forward Second Temple-Era Mikveh Covered in Ancient Script Discovered in Jerusalem
An ancient mikvah covered in paintings and inscriptions was discovered in Jerusalem at the construction site of a nursery school. The school was being built in the upscale Arnona neighborhood of southern Jerusalem when the ritual bath dating to the Second Temple period was discovered two months ago during a routine archaeological inspection, the Israel…
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Fast Forward Rabbi Barry Freundel Appeals Prison Sentence for Mikveh-Peeping
Rabbi Barry Freundel is appealing the length of his prison sentence for filming women nude at a ritual bath. Freundel, who was sentenced in May to 6 1/2 years for videotaping dozens of women at a Washington, D.C., mikveh, is arguing that he should have been sentenced to no more than one year in prison,…
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Life Barry Freundel Nightmare Isn’t Over for Victims
Watching a downcast Rabbi Barry Freundel being led away to face incarceration immediately after he was sentenced to six and a half years in prison on May 15 may not have healed the trauma and pain of his victims, but it marked a milestone for many of them. Two of the many women in the…
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Life Barry Freundel Continues to Violate Women’s Privacy
I follow the Barry Freundel case quite closely, closer than most. I have a : I’m a confirmed victim (though the videos he took of me inside the preparation room at the mikveh was recorded outside the statute of limitations). When news broke yesterday of a defense memo I immediately got my hands on an…
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In Case You Missed It
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Yiddish פֿיר צײַטן פֿון יאָר מיט פֿינף סאָנעטן פֿון אַ גאַנץ יאָרFour seasons in five sonnets
דער זומער איז אַן עקשן, ער וויל ניט, וויל ניט קומען, הגם אויף בייטן וואַקסן צעקווייטיקט שוין די בלומען.
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Books For the Jews of Venice, an uneasy history of scapegoating and grudging tolerance