Tagged Modern Orthodox

(JTA) — A Jewish day school in Oakland, California, is committing to making changes this week after a local family said the school had declined to accept their gender-fluid child. Meg Keene, an Oakland mother who runs a prominent wedding planning website, encouraged her thousands of Instagram followers to… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — “There’s no such thing as a bad date — there’s just a funny story,” says Jessica Schechter, a 28-year-old modern Orthodox woman who teaches acting in New York City and lives on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. There’s the guy who took her to the action… Read more »

A modern Orthodox high school in New York recently announced it will allow girls to lay tefillin. Another school has quietly done so since the 1990s.

The announcement last week that SAR, a modern Orthodox high school in New York, is allowing girls to lay tefillin is helping expose an increasingly sharp fault line within Orthodoxy. For decades, it has been difficult to sort out the precise dividing lines between the varieties of Orthodoxy —… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — For years, Rachel Light felt like a hostage, worried she would be forever trapped in her marriage to Eben Light. Even in April 2012, after Eben was arrested for allegedly threatening her and was slapped with a restraining order, Rachel was unable to get a… 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 »

The Moshav band performs original world music, folk and rock in Hebrew and English, as well as "Shlomo tunes" of the late Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach. (Courtesy Moshav Band)

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — With his yarmulke, ritual fringes and lyrics occasionally borrowed from ancient texts, Grammy-nominated reggae star Matisyahu may be the most publicly Jewish performer in the mainstream music scene. But he’s not the only one. Growing ranks of Jewishly committed performers are finding success on the national… Read more »

The Robert M. Beren Academy in Houston is open to kids 18 months old and all the way through high school. (Courtesy Robert M. Beren Academy)

NEW YORK (JTA) – With day school tuition fees on the rise, New York housing costs among the highest in the nation and the job market still tough, the Orthodox Union has a solution for Orthodox Jews under pressure: Move to Houston. In a first-of-its-kind partnership for the organization, the… Read more »

Haredi Orthodox men clash with police in the Israeli city of Beit Shemesh, Dec. 26, 2011. (Kobi Gideon/Flash 90/JTA)

JERUSALEM (JTA) — For several years now, the Jerusalem suburb of Beit Shemesh has been the site of on-again, off-again religious violence. But it wasn’t until the plight of a fearful 8-year-old girl from a Modern Orthodox immigrant family from America was broadcast on Israel’s Channel 2 over the… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — I have no patience for survival Judaism. Whenever I hear someone talk about what Jews must do in order to “survive,” I head for the door. Joel Alperson has joined the long list of Jewish communal leaders offering a formula for Jewish survival. Along the… Read more »

OMAHA, Neb. (JTA) — At least a portion of my hometown of Omaha, Neb., may well be under water in the coming days. Pumps are in place at various locations, including at a nuclear power plant located not far from town. The Missouri River, which borders our city, has… Read more »