Iran generated headlines around the world last week and sparked a vicious backlash after its government did the unthinkable: they made Zumba illegal. But, as Haaretz points out, the Muslim clerics who hope to purge Iran of “Zumba and any harmonious movement or body-shaking instruction” might find sympathy among their sworn enemies: ultra-Orthodox rabbis. Four…
Thinkstock // One Orthodox Rabbi has strongly condemned Zumba classes. In recent years, a slew of savvy Orthodox rabbis have taken to condemning women for everything they do. Their brilliant speeches can be found on YouTube and other websites, and have made their rounds on social media. The topics of their impassioned speeches run the…
Rabbis in an ultra-Orthodox settlement have come out publicly against the trendy Brazilian fitness dance known as Zumba. A rabbinic panel in Beitar Illit ruled against Zumba classes, the Hebrew-language website Mako reported, even as it is practiced in this religious community – with a female instructor and all-female participants. In the document issued by…
On Slate, Deborah Copaken Kogan tells a moving Jewish mother story for the digital age, about how sharing her son’s strange symptoms on Facebook saved his life. Among those in favor of beatifying WWII-era Pope Pius XII is a nun now making the case that the pontiff ordered her convent to shelter 114 Jewish women…
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