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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Life Between Baalat Teshuva and Britney Spears
When I was an 18-year-old yeshiva high school graduate from Brooklyn, one of the biggest questions on the minds of my female friends and me — right after, who will get engaged next? — was, who is going to “frum out” in Israel? You know, it’s what happens during that post-high school yeshiva experience in…
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Life Orthodox Sage to Women in Tallitot at Kotel: You Are Deviant and Stupid
A former Chief Sephardic Rabbi and current spiritual leader of Israel’s Shas religious political party, Rav Ovadia Yosef, in his weekly sermon last Saturday night called women who wear prayer shawls to daven at the Western Wall “stupid” and “deviants.” He was speaking of Women of the Wall, a group of devoted and, dare I…
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Life Orthodoxy’s Troubling Double Standards for Women
I had a jarring conversation with a young woman last week. In a discussion about the challenges women face in Orthodoxy, she turned to me with a cheeky smile and declared, “I am not a feminist.” She described her perceptions of Shira Hadasha, the pioneering partnership synagogue in Jerusalem where men and women share certain…
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Life Thwarted Attempt To Transport Jerusalem Riots Stateside
The streets around the Israeli consulate in Midtown Manhattan had the normal midday rush at 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday, but there was not a black hat or protestor was in sight. The absence was notable because ultra-Orthodox organizers had called for a protest against the Israeli government at 2:30, across the street from the consulate…
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Life How To Behave at an Upsherin
The true test of a little boy’s character must be how he reacts when a roomful of adults come at him with scissors and start cutting his virgin locks. If this sounds like some sort of primitive tribal ritual, well, it is a ritual of our tribe — it’s called an upsherin (or upshernin, uphsernish,…
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Life Sex Abuse Bill May be Headed for Vote Next Week
A newly amended bill to extend the statute of limitations for child sex abuse and to allow a one-year “window” for otherwise time-barred lawsuits may come up for a vote in the New York State Assembly as early as Monday or Tuesday according to one of its sponsors. The controversial measure, opposed by the Catholic…
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Life Forget ‘Kosher Cheeseburgers,’ Let’s Focus on Rebuilding the Temple
Rabbi David Bar-Hayim thinks Israel’s Orthodox Jews are debating the wrong things. By way of example, the rabbi points to a few silly questions that have been posed to him about food: Whether religious Jews should eat anything that looks non-kosher Whether the desire for kosher cheeseburgers indicated a character or spiritual flaw Whether one…
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Life Is Noah Feldman The N.Y. Times’ New Jayson Blair?
The Orthodox Union waded into the Noah Feldman debate with guns a-blazin’ today. With a press release titled, “Noah Feldman as the ‘Jewish Jayson Blair’?” the O.U.’s Institute for Public Affairs charged that both Feldman and The New York Times Magazine, where the Harvard legal scholar’s much-discussed July 22 critique of Modern Orthodoxy appeared, “knew…
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