This is the Forward’s coverage of Orthodox Judaism, which aims for a stricter observance of halachic law than Conservative or Reform Judaism. It includes Modern Orthodox Judaism, as well as Haredi (sometimes called ultra-Orthodox) Judaism,…
Orthodox Judaism
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Opinion Unholy Alliance of Orthodox Judaism and Political Power Harms Israeli Democracy
Last June, Forward editor Jane Eisner participated in a private roundtable discussion at the Israeli Presidential Conference in Jerusalem about Israel’s Jewish identity. What came out of the talks was the sense that Jews in Israel and in the Diaspora face a similar challenge — how to be a modern people in a modern world…
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Fast Forward Yosef Kolko, Lakewood Yeshiva Camp Counselor, Seeks To Pull Abuse Guilty Plea
A former counselor at a summer camp run by a yeshiva in Lakewood, N.J., wants to withdraw his guilty plea on charges of sexually abusing a male camper. Yosef Kolko, 39, pleaded guilty in May, on the third day of his trial, to aggravated sexual assault, attempted aggravated sexual assault, sexual assault and child endangerment…
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Fast Forward Putting Women’s Images Back in Israeli Billboards
Eve Finkelstein, a Beit Shemesh doctor, and her friend Esther (an alias) first encountered the billboards as they were driving down the Beit Shemesh’s main access road. The billboards surrounded a construction site of a new condominium project being built by Zemach Hammerman. The project wasn’t marketed in the ultra-Orthodox community and isn’t located in…
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News Judith Levy’s Best-Selling Series Inspires Grandparents to Record Life Stories
Judith Levy met her husband, Herb Levy, more than four decades ago at the Concord Resort Hotel and Golf Club, in Kiamesha Lake, N.Y., which at the time was a famous Borscht Belt destination. A singer with a gig at the hotel, she was passing the time by writing letters in the lobby. Herb came…
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Opinion Bill Thompson and 2 Josephs
New York mayoral candidate Bill Thompson’s political tour guides to Hasidic Brooklyn are two guys named Joseph — both famous influence-peddlers with strong community connections and checkered pasts. When he campaigned in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Williamsburg on Labor Day, Thompson was accompanied by Hasidic fixers Joseph Menczer and Joseph Goldberger, the New York Observer…
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Opinion A Truce in the Kotel Wars?
The ongoing drama over who is allowed to pray at the Western Wall, and where, and how, and under what circumstances, encapsulates all that divides and distresses the Jewish people today, and all that can unify us. We understand the skeptics and cynics. We appreciate how difficult it will be to pry control over what…
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News Rabbis Declare War on Chit-Chat in Synagogue
Chat during synagogue services and God might kill you, the Talmud warns. That’s if you’re lucky. If you’re not, God might kill everyone you know: One legend attributes a 17th-century Cossack slaughter of tens of thousands of Ukrainian Jews to excessive talking in synagogue. “Woe to people who carry on conversations during prayer, for we…
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News Is Western Wall Prayer Platform Step Forward for Women — Or Back?
For more than a decade, Jews have been permitted to hold egalitarian prayer services at a southern section of the Western Wall that lies out of sight of Orthodox worshippers. But the area, known as Robinson’s Arch in the Jerusalem Archaeological Park, never became a government-supported prayer facility. Worshippers have always been guests of the…
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