Tagged haredi Orthodox

(JTA) — A teenager has turned himself in for punching an identifiably Jewish man in the head in Brooklyn. It was one of two attacks on haredi Orthodox men in the largely haredi Williamsburg neighborhood in less than two weeks. Police are withholding the 16-year-old’s name because he is… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) – Jerusalem therapist Miriam Ballin is the kind of person who takes the initiative. Despite resistance from her haredi Orthodox community, she became a medic. Then she launched a pacesetting psychological first aid unit. Clearly she was not just going to stand idly by while Tropical Storm… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) – Haredi Orthodox Jews agree with their non-Orthodox brethren on one thing: The future of the Jewish people is at stake in the debate raging over who controls the Western Wall and conversion in Israel. Other than that, though, there is little common ground. According to Nachum… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Like many of my friends, I grew up in the United States with a strong affinity for Israel. As a child we saved money to buy trees, learned Israeli songs, studied Hebrew, visited Israel and marched in Israeli Independence Day parades. I recall well that my… Read more »

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Israel’s last governing coalition — divided on war, peace and economics — did agree on one thing: Israel’s religious policies needed to change. Now it appears that the incoming coalition will be organized around the opposite principle: Those changes must end. A coalition agreement signed… Read more »

Mario Cuomo, seated, was New York's governor when he waa a featured speaker at the 57th General Assembly of the Council of Jewish Federations held in New Orleans, November 1988. Showing their appreciation of the governor's comments are CJF President Mandell Berman, right, and Daniel Shapiro of New York. (Robert A. Cumins)

(JTA) — Mario Cuomo, a three-term New York governor, was the rare politician who appealed to the Jewish tent’s opposite poles. A strident liberal with a nuanced understanding of the sense of vulnerability among the deeply religious in a secular society, Cuomo died of heart failure on Thursday just… Read more »

The etrog constitutes the centerpiece of the biblically mandated four species to be blessed during the weeklong holiday of Sukkot. (Shutterstock)

NEW YORK (JTA) – Naftali Berger’s quest for perfection ends in victory when the 24-year-old kollel student enters Tsvi Dahan’s trailer on Wallabout Street in the haredi Orthodox Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn. “Find something wrong with it — find it!” a glowing Berger exclaims Monday as he holds his… Read more »

Secular Israelis outside the Cinema City theater in Jerusalem demonstrating in favor of allowing movie theaters to open on Shabbat, Feb. 25, 2014. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

TEL AVIV (JTA) – During the past 18 months, the governing coalition in Israel has passed legislation to extend the nation’s mandatory conscription to the haredi Orthodox — a group currently exempted from military service — and Knesset leaders have advanced bills that would allow for civil unions and… Read more »

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. (JTA) – The Bais Menachem Youth Development program in this northeastern Pennsylvania city is no typical Chabad yeshiva. The students wear flip-flops and T-shirts, not the typical black-and-white of Hasidic seminaries. In addition to Jewish law and Bible study, the curriculum includes improv nights, poetry slams and… Read more »

Menachem Stark, shown with his wife and seven children, was hailed as a loving father and generous giver by his Hasidic community. (Courtesy photo)

 NEW YORK (JTA) — The murder of Menachem Stark has sparked intense media scrutiny of the Brooklyn real estate developer’s troubled business record, prompting the New York Post to ask “Who didn’t want him dead?” on its front page. But while mainstream media outlets scrutinized the Satmar hasid’s relationships… Read more »

Hundreds of thousands of mourners attended the funeral procession of Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef who was buried at the Sanhedriya cemetery on Oct. 7, 2013. (Yaakov Naumi/Flash90)

JERUSALEM (JTA) — I didn’t need to ask directions. Stepping out of the Jerusalem Central Bus Station, I saw them, men in hats and coats walking together slowly, a steady stream moving  east along one of Jerusalem’s central thoroughfares to the funeral of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. At 5 p.m.,… Read more »

 JERUSALEM (JTA) — The scene is familiar to us all. Women of the Wall come to the Kotel to worship in the shadow of the Temple Mount. Haredi Orthodox worshippers respond by disrupting their prayers, sometimes pelting them with eggs and other objects. Underlying these clashes are distinctly modern… Read more »

Hadassa Margolese walking her daughter Naama to school in Beit Shemesh a few days after Naama was harassed by haredi Orthodox men, December 2011. (Kobi Gideon/Flash90/JTA)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Two years ago, Hadassa Margolese became a symbol of resistance to haredi Orthodox domination after she allowed her 8-year-old daughter to tell an Israeli reporter how religious men had spit on her as she walked to school. The report made headlines around the world and… Read more »

Jacob Ostreicher is despondent, his wife says, after spending nearly two years under house arrest in Bolivia. (Courtesy Miriam Unger)

(Washington Jewish Week) — Jacob Ostreicher, a haredi Orthodox father of five who remains under house arrest in Bolivia, does not believe he will ever be free and often unplugs his home phone because he is too depressed to speak with his family, according to his wife, Miriam Ungar.… Read more »

Young Israeli Orthodox women turn out by the hundreds to protest Women of the Wall's monthly prayer service at the Western Wall, May 10, 2013. (Ben Sales)

JERUSALEM (JTA) – Haredi Orthodox youths mobbed the Western Wall plaza by the thousands to protest Women of the Wall as they held their monthly prayer service. The youths, many of them students from haredi Orthodox yeshivas, filled the Western Wall Plaza by 6:40 a.m. on Friday, 20 minutes… Read more »

Wine is an integral part of the Passover Seder as matzah, but for alcoholics this can pose a serious problem. (Shutterstock)

NEW YORK (JTA) — It’s rare that an Orthodox rabbi chooses to omit an important Jewish ritual in his holiday celebrations. But in the spring of 2000, Rabbi Yosef Lipsker cleared his living room of furniture, set up three large dining tables and invited dozens of people to a… Read more »

Yesh Atid party leader Yair Lapid hugging Jewish Home party chief Naftali Bennett following Lapid's first speech at the Knesset, Feb. 11, 2013. (Miriam Alster/Flash90.JTA)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — When he emerged bruised but unbeaten following the Jan. 22 elections, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced some tough choices. Should he aim for a narrow, right-wing governing coalition comprised of haredi Orthodox, nationalist and religious Zionist parties that would give him a narrow majority… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — If you’re looking to move to an apartment on or near Park Avenue, be prepared to break open the piggy bank. Prices are higher than ever and developers are squabbling over construction rights. That’s Park Avenue, Brooklyn — not its swankier Manhattan namesake. For decades,… Read more »

BEIT SHEMESH, Israel (JTA) — Next to the Modern Orthodox Orot Banot girls school in Beit Shemesh, fresh mounds of dirt and a huge hole in the ground indicate the spot where a community center is being built. Orot Banot was at the center of conflict between local haredi… Read more »

Natan Sharansky, head of the Jewish Agency for Israel, is tasked with finding a solution to the growing battle over women’s prayer restrictions at the Western Wall. (Miriam Alster/Flash90/JTA)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — He brought unprecedented attention to the plight of Soviet Jewry. He stood up to the KGB. He survived nine years in Siberia. He served in Israel’s fractious government. Now, Natan Sharansky is facing his next challenge: finding a solution to the growing battle over women’s… Read more »