This is the Forward’s coverage of mikvahs, Jewish ritual baths.
Mikvah
The Latest
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Fast Forward Rabbi Barry Freundel Seeks No Jail Time for Mikveh Peeping
Prosecutors are seeking a 17-year prison term for Rabbi Barry Freundel, 63, who will be sentenced on Friday. He pleaded guilty in February to recording the women between early 2009 and October 2014, using devices installed in two changing rooms for the National Capital Mikvah, next to the Kesher synagogue in the upscale Georgetown neighborhood….
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Life A Brief History of Mikveh in the Ghettos
This piece was written by and shared with permission from the . Throughout history, the mikveh has stood at the very core of religious Jewish life and practice, and said to protect the Jewish people both physically and spiritually. It is therefore fitting on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, to explore some of the…
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Fast Forward Rabbi Barry Freundel’s Wife Speaks for First Time Since Mikveh-Peep Arrest
The estranged wife of Rabbi Barry Freundel, who pleaded guilty to secretly videotaping women in his Orthodox synagogue’s mikvah, spoke publicly for the first time since his arrest in October. Sharon Freundel delivered a lecture last week at the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School study center in Rockville, Md., titled “Post-Traumatic Stress Responses in…
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Fast Forward Rabbi Barry Freundel Quits Post at Towson University
Rabbi Barry Freundel, who pleaded guilty to voyeurism charges, has resigned as a professor at Towson University in Maryland. Freundel submitted his letter of resignation to the suburban Baltimore university on Thursday, Towson spokesman Ray Feldmann told the Baltimore Sun. His resignation is effective March 27. Freundel had taught ethics and religion since 2009 and…
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Culture ‘MikiLeaks’ Reveals New NSA Spying Scandal
Rabbi Barry Freundel, who has pled guilty to 52 counts of voyeurism, has revealed that he was recruited as part of a government surveillance program called “MikiLeaks.” The program, run by the National Security Agency, targeted Jewish ritual baths, known as mikvehs, to collect evidence of individuals peeing in the mikveh. Freundel’s claims were backed…
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Culture Rabbi Freundel’s 8 Reasons There Should Be an Alarm Clock in The Mikveh
1) To distract from the dripping tap. 2) So that mikveh dippers can time themselves to make sure they don’t take too long to get naked. 3) To make the changing room reassuringly haimish, like a bedroom. 4) Really? A practice dunk is totally normal but having a clock in there is the weird part?…
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Life No, We Didn’t Let Barry Freundel Happen
Not unsurprisingly, given that I’m a victim, I’ve read almost everything printed about the Barry Freundel case since it first broke back in October. I have made myself available for interviews not because I want to be known as the woman whose rabbi taped her naked, but because I think it’s important for reporters to…
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Opinion How Could We Have Trusted Rabbi Barry Freundel?
Now that Rabbi Barry Freundel has pleaded guilty to peeping at 52 women while they went to the mikveh — prosecutors say he spied on 100 more women, but outside the statute of limitations — we finally can take off the qualifiers and accept that he is guilty. And that means we can begin some…
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