Textbooks on secular subjects in Israel are infused with religious Jewish content, according to a review of 80 books published in the past 10 years conducted by the Israeli parents group the Secular Forum, reported Haaretz. The group called the use of religious themes to explain secular subjects a “systematic and ideological move” to “reshape…
A third of Jewish Israelis would leave the country if they could, according to a poll conducted by Masa Israeli, a group looking at the divisions of Jewish society in Israel. It found that secular Jews were the most likely to want to emigrate, with 36% saying they would leave the country if they could….
“I know my husband uses the microwave on Shabbat,” a friend told me, after I shared my story of being in a mixed secular-religious marriage, “but he makes sure to do it while I’m out of the house at shul.” While this bifurcated approach may work in the short term, where the less observant partner…
My oldest daughter, who is going on 9, was tossing insults at her younger sister, Moriya, heedless of my exhortations to cease and desist. The usual deprecatory remarks that fly around our Israeli apartment like arrows include “stupid,” “liar” and “crybaby,” in various combinations of Hebrew and English. This time, though, there was a zinger…
In 1996, Asher Abramovitz, the longtime principal of Kinneret Day School, a non-denominational community school in Riverdale, New York, received an unusual proposition: Aaron Frank, the 27 year-old assistant rabbi of a local Orthodox synagogue, offered to meet weekly with the school’s mostly non-observant eighth graders to chat about Jewish ethics and philosophy, a sort…
The Jerusalem home of a secular Jewish educator was vandalized by suspected Jewish extremists. The graffiti discovered Thursday morning at the home of Yaakov Malkin included a reference to the Book of Psalms about hating “those who are in rebellion” against God, a Star of David and the words “Destruction of Amalek,” referring to the…
“Writing is a miserable, awful business. Stay with it. It is better than anything in the world.” This quote from Ann Patchett sums up my feelings about writing — and it’s also how I feel about my chosen religious lifestyle. I grew up in a secular Jewish home and, as a young adult, was drawn…
When I was 15, I borrowed one of those hideous T-shirts from a friend. Sartorial faux-pas aside, this turned out to be a poor decision that would lead to me being asked to leave a French History exam 20 minutes in. To change. You see, the French lycée that I attended abided by the same…
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