Tagged Haredi

(JTA) — The video, with suspenseful music playing in the background, opens with footage of a crowd of Orthodox Jews. Then it paraphrases a classic poem about the Holocaust. “First they came for my house, but I did not speak up,” the narrator says. “I said I am not… Read more »

(JTA) — They’ve tried strongly worded statements. They’ve tried private meetings with the prime minister. They’ve tried negotiations, protest and prayer. But for the past five years, despite broad internal consensus and consistent pressure, the American Jewish establishment has been unable to persuade Israel’s government to create an equitable… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) – When America’s main modern Orthodox rabbinical association voted last week to ban the hiring of clergywomen by its members, the question wasn’t whether to endorse women rabbis. It was whether to widen the group’s well-established repudiation of female clergy or keep quiet and focus on finding common ground with modern… Read more »

Women of the Wall holding their monthly Rosh Chodesh service at the Western Wall, in contravention of rules barring women from wearing prayer shawls or reading from the Torah at the site, March 12, 2013. (Miriam Alster/Flash90/JTA)

JERUSALEM (JTA) — If ever there were a gathering of Women of the Wall that was going to spark a wider conflict, Tuesday’s would have been the one. For the past several months, police have detained members of the women’s prayer group during their monthly Rosh Chodesh services for… Read more »

A Haredi man and his son standing next to the army recruiting office in Jerusalem on August 1, 2012. (Noam Moskowitz/Flash 90/JTA)

TEL AVIV (JTA) –  The controversy had sparked a national debate, raucous protests in the streets and the collapse of a historic government. That came in the months after the Israeli Supreme Court had nullified a law exempting haredi Orthodox Israelis from military service and given the government until… Read more »

A recent article by Israeli journalist Yaron London headlined “We Need Fewer Haredim” and two major pieces in The New York Times about the haredi approach to sex abuse cases highlight the challenge and the need to address serious issues emanating from the haredi world without demonizing an entire… Read more »

To the outside observer, the haredi Orthodox anti-Internet rally at New York’s Citi Field may have looked uniform: a single mass of black hats, white shirts and brown beards. But the 40,000-strong crowd at the May 20 event was far from homogeneous. Yiddish speakers sat next to Anglophones. Chasidim… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — The recent violence in Beit Shemesh and Jerusalem’s Mea Shearim neighborhood has led me to speak out against the so-called “sikrikim” in the harshest possible terms, equating their actions to terrorism. Sikrikim is the name given to a fringe anti-Zionist vigilante group, loosely linked to Neturei… Read more »

Guy Gelbart

What does it mean to be a Jewish and democratic state? This question came to light with the story of Na’ama Margolis. Na’ama, an 8-year-old modern Orthodox girl, was the victim of an offense by a small radical haredi (ultra-Orthodox) group called the Sicricim (Latin: Sicarii, the dagger man).… Read more »

Dov Lipman, left, a Modern Orthodox leader in Beit Shemesh, and a haredi Orthodox man, Moshe Friedman, engage in a shouting match near the Banot Orot school. (Michael Lipkin)

BEIT SHEMESH, Israel (JTA) — This time it started with cries of “Sluts!” and “Shiksas!” and the throwing of eggs and bags of excrement at young girls who attend a recently opened Modern Orthodox elementary school in this Jerusalem suburb. The assailants: religious extremists from the haredi Orthodox neighborhood… Read more »