Tagged Orthodox conversion

I don’t believe in God — but this is why I’m having an Orthodox wedding

Cnaan Liphshiz and wife Iris celebrate their wedding in the Netherlands, July 2, 2013. (Courtesy of Liphshiz)

AMSTERDAM (JTA) — My wife and I were married roughly 5,000 diapers ago, and she’s still waiting for me to propose. I know this because she reminds me every anniversary. To be clear, ours was no shotgun wedding. Iris and I were hitched in a civil marriage in Holland… Read more »

Panel recommends changes to Orthodox conversion, offers snapshot of converts

The Rabbinical Council of America found that 78 percent of those who convert through its system are women. (Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)

NEW YORK (JTA) – After facing criticism for its handling of inappropriate behavior by a convert-supervising rabbi who turned out to be a mikvah-peeping voyeur, the country’s main centrist Orthodox rabbinical group has released key guidelines aimed at preventing abuses during the conversion process. The Rabbinical Council of America is recommending that would-be… Read more »

For some Orthodox converts, biggest challenges come after mikvah

NEW YORK (JTA) – There was the convert who was barred from a synagogue on Yom Kippur, the Jamaican convert whose boyfriend’s rabbi offered him a coveted synagogue honor if only he’d dump her, the grandmother who told her granddaughter she’d be going to hell because she became a… Read more »

Op-Ed: What the Freundel scandal says about Orthodoxy

MODIIN, Israel (JTA) — With the news that Rabbi Barry Freundel, a prominent Orthodox rabbi, has been arrested for peeping at the naked bodies of his female congregants through a secret camera in the mikvah, or Jewish ritual bath, many disturbing questions are being raised about the implications of… Read more »