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 Why Won’t Orthodox Condemn Trump’s Ties to White Supremacists After Charlottesville?
Over the past two days, we have been flooded with horrifying images of the largest white supremacist demonstration in decades. We’ve also been met with President Trump’s shameless failure to condemn the white supremacists. A president who has no qualms condemning journalists for doing their jobs, or retailers for not carrying his daughter’s handbags, could…
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Fast Forward Formerly Ultra-Orthodox Millennials Get Special ‘Off The Derech’ Moishe House
Two not-for-profits, Moishe House and Footsteps, are teaming up to create a center for formerly ultra-Orthodox millennial Jews. Moishe House is known widely for subsidizing co-living spaces for residents who use the spaces as hubs for the local twentysomething Jewish community. The residents of the new Moishe House Crown Heights are all Jews who are…
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Life Orthodox Survivor Of Sex Abuse Exposes Traumas In New Film
You wouldn’t believe she’s only 20. With no film schooling or experience, Baltimore native Miryam Rabinowitz has thrown herself into a film project that tells the story of sexual abuse — or rather, its lonely, complex aftermath. “Still Feeling” tells the story of Yuval Goldenberg, a young woman who was abused during her childhood in…
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Yiddish World Yankel and Leah (Chapter 5): Glancing at the Eyes of the Gentile Cashier
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. He took up this thread when he called Miriam the shadchan’te the next morning. “I am still not sure about the way she looks,” Yankel told her. “I have no way of knowing. I can’t even remember from date to date what she looks like. I don’t think I…
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News Orthodox Jews Divide Over Questions Of Whether Yoga, Crystals, Reiki Are Kosher
An Orthodox community is in the midst of a philosophical crisis that’s pitting hard-line rationalists against New Age-leaning mystics — and the publication of a new book by a well-known rabbi has exposed and intensified the struggle. In his recently published “Alternative Medicine in Halakhah,” Lakewood, New Jersey rabbi Rephoel Szmerla gives Jewish legal justifications…
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Life Banned from Print Media, Ultra-Orthodox Women Turn to Instagram
Orthodox women are disappearing. Over the years, Orthodox magazines and newspapers have placed a strict ban on any images of women. And ironically, this erasure has emerged at a time of the community’s increased access to a luxury lifestyle: Orthodox women, decked out in glamorous wigs and haute couture, will ultimately pick up glossy religious…
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Culture Everything You Need to Know About Judaism’s Saddest Day of the Year
Tisha b’Av, the Ninth of Av, is the commemoration of the destruction of Jerusalem’s Temple. And it’s also, basically, Catastrophe Day for the Jews. It’s the day we consolidate all of our thousands of years of sorrow into one, 25-hour long inferno. Here’s what traditional Jews are mourning on this day, according to the Mishnah…
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Yiddish World Yankel and Leah 4: Observing the NYC Skyline – And Her
This originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. To read the previous chapter. “I’m available,” Leah said brightly. “Good,” he said, feeling an instant resistance to her enthusiasm. “I’ll see you at eight o’clock?” This time Yankel was able to borrow a different car. It was an almost-new Oldsmobile 98 Regency. “Beautiful car,” Leah said when he…
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Film & TV The new ‘Superman’ is being called anti-Israel, but does that make it pro-Palestine?
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Music ‘No matter what, I will always be a Jew.’ Billy Joel opens up about his family’s Holocaust history
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Culture She was my Hebrew school bully — and I finally learned what happened to her
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Opinion American Jews were played — now what?
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