The fate of a congressional resolution to authorize President Barack Obama’s planned military strikes on Syria hinges on scores of undecided U.S. lawmakers, with party loyalty appearing increasingly irrelevant. Even after congressional hearings featuring Obama’s secretaries of state and defense, a half dozen closed-door briefings and phone calls from Obama himself, it was too close…
Suddenly everyone is talking about Syria. Two years of mayhem and murder, confusion and hesitation. 100,000 Syrians killed, a quarter of the population turned refugees, and now hundreds have been gassed to death, a sight which no Jew – no human – can ignore; a sight which once seen, cannot go unanswered. As we enter…
A Jordanian government minister condemned Israel’s construction of a new prayer space south of the existing Western Wall Plaza. Jordan’s State Minister for Media Affairs Mohammad Momani on Monday called the construction of a platform in the area for egalitarian prayer “a blatant attack on the Muslim monuments and Wakf land which is an integral…
Minister of Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs Naftali Bennett made an attempt to reconcile Diaspora Jews and released a letter to World Jewry ahead of the new Jewish year explaining his plan to resolve the ongoing dispute over the rights of non-Orthodox Jews, including women, to pray at the Western Wall according to their customs. According…
The struggle for women to pray as they see fit at the Western Wall will be the focus of High Holy Day sermons at congregations across the United States, as part of an organized campaign to galvanize support for greater religious tolerance in Israel. The campaign is being spearheaded by Jewish Voices Together, a New…
Josh Halpern’s essay, Should Men Thank God They Were Not Born Women? sensitively and articulately outlines many of the tensions facing those of us who are committed to the halacha and Orthodoxy and at the same time live in a world a seemingly incongruous world: a world where women are first-class politicians, lawyers, doctors, educators…
Late this spring, my sister asked the administration at her Modern Orthodox high school if it would consider instituting a change to the morning prayer service. Instead of the usual practice of hurrying through the morning blessings, she wanted the male hazan to pause after reciting the blessing of “Shelo Asani Isha” (“Blessed are you…
Religious Services Minister Naftali Bennett hailed Sunday’s completion of a large platform for non-Orthodox prayer at the southernmost portion of the Western Wall as a history-making event. But the Women of the Wall, who have led the fight for non-Orthodox prayer at the Kotel, derided the new platform as “a sunbathing deck that overlooks the…
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