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
The Latest
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Opinion Day Schools Stuck in Neutral
The month of December brought some bad news for Jewish day school advocates. According to the Avi Chai Foundation, which tracks these things, day school enrollment saw a “modest decline” of about 1.4% in the 2011-12 school year, compared with the year before. The sharpest decline was reported among the Solomon Schechter schools of Conservative…
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News American Enclave Stands Up to Extremists
Little Na’ama Margolese is not the first Israeli child to be harassed on her way to school by members of a fundamentalist ultra-Orthodox sect who resent her presence in or around their neighborhood. But the 8-year-old girl is the first to have her plight featured on Israeli television and turned into an international news story….
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Culture Single Malt Scotch for Feminists
The Men’s Section: Orthodox Jewish Men in an Egalitarian World By Elana Maryles Sztokman University Press of New England, 288 pages, $85 A few years ago, a friend announced that he intended to start a “Kiddush club” at our synagogue. “Our shul needs more of a social scene,” he declared, “and some high-quality single malt…
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News Reform Reaches Past Synagogue
The leaders of Reform Judaism, America’s largest Jewish denomination, aim to staunch their movement’s erosion with a new strategy to reach beyond the synagogue and actively search for Jews living outside the community’s established framework. The strategy, articulated at the group’s recent biennial national conference, is the brainchild of Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the movement’s newly…
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News Sandra Bernhard Shows Her Softer Side
Her followers on Twitter know that Sandra Bernhard shares a dizzying number of missives. “I mix it up, honey, tomorrow night is a vegan potato kale enchilada. That’s how we roll,” said a recent tweet. Another said simply: “7:20 is the new 10:30.” To some, the domesticity might seem surprising. After all, Bernhard is a…
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Israel News Israel Deports Some Converted Immigrants
Within the next few weeks Martina Ragachova could be deported from Israel — for being too frum. Prague-born Ragachova, 37, moved to Israel a decade ago, and in 2004 converted to Judaism in the Bnei Brak rabbinic court of Nissim Karelitz, one of the world’s best-respected and most stringent Haredi rabbis. Karelitz was so moved…
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News Yoffie Led Return to Reform Roots
Say this about Rabbi Eric Yoffie: He goes where others have not. In 2006, he went to that bastion of Christian fundamentalism, the Rev. Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, and reminded the students of the religious values he shares with them, and the ones (reproductive rights, gay rights) that he does not. Then, in 2007, he…
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News Orthodox Push for Own Districts
In Texas, Republican state officials have recently gone to the U.S. Supreme Court to defend their plan to break up a heavily minority state Senate district. At the same time, in New York, state Republicans are reportedly pushing a plan to consolidate another minority — Brooklyn Orthodox Jews — in just such a district. It’s…
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