Jewish News

The Sinful Aftermath – Clinging To Bad Ideas

Ki Tisa: The afternoon of the day that the Torah was given, Moshe ascended Mount Sinai for forty days of solitude. He spent his time studying the newly received code with its Divine author. Waiting impatiently at the foot of the mountain was the Jewish nation, who mistakenly anticipated Moshe’s arrival on the thirty ninth day.According to their miscalculation, Moshe ...

The Shomrim: Helping Keep Everyone Safe

For more than 40 years, Crown Heights Shomrim (Hebrew for guards) have been combating crime on the streets of Crown Heights.The Shomrim are licensed organizations of volunteer Jewish civilian patrols which have been set up in hassidic and hareidi-religious neighborhoods in the United States and England to combat burglary, vandalism, mugging, assault, domestic violence, and anti-Semitic attacks. They also help ...

The Rebuilding Of Old Siget By Satmar Chasidim

The transfer of important former Jewish properties in the city of Siget has occurred after protracted negotiations, including intercession by several U.S. congressmen. The properties include the cemetery, shul complex, beis medrash, the Teitelbaum family home, and the mikvehs.This great achievement was accomplished by agents of Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum, Satmar Rebbe. Long years of work and untold effort were necessary. ...

The Rabbi Elon case: Sexual abuse in the Zionist Orthodox community

The affair began five years ago, when suspicions arose at a religious forum called Takana, set up to deal with allegations of sexual harassment in the religious Zionist community, that Rabbi Moti Elon had committed sexual offenses.Takana had received multiple complaints that Elon, one of the most prominent rabbis in the religious Zionist community, had allegedly maintained sexual relations with ...

The Phone Representative From Mumbai

I responded to a letter from American Express alerting me to a charge that was on my credit card, that they thought might be fraudulent. (It was.) After several failed attempts to input my card number into the automated voice machine, I was transferred to a live person. When the rep who answered had a non-English accent, I was tempted ...

The Palestinian Family that Inspired Jewish Debate

Israel is a European colonialist entity and is destined to disappear, said the Palestinian family that was a major inspiration for American journalist Peter Beinart to write his controversial book The Crisis of Zionism.In an interview at their family home in downtown Hebron on Saturday, the Jaber family said they had no idea that a video of their son Khaled ...

The Orthodox Jewish battle over a N.Y. school system

The battle between a New York Orthodox Jewish community and its neighbors over the local public school system took a drastic turn in late April as the school board’s Orthodox president resigned amid corruption allegations, and a federal official confirmed a civil rights investigation into the district.While the corruption allegations against the board president relate to his alleged conduct in ...

The Olympic Games Show Us That Zionism is Not a Dirty Word

This week, my wife and are going to the Olympics. Britain seems to be aflame with Olympic fever; people are desperate to go to any event they can get tickets for, and every newspaper reserves its front pages for the latest British medallists. The pride in hosting the event and the pride in our medallists is palpable. As a Zionist, ...

The new leader of Reform Judaism: A Zionist and lover of Israel

Reuben Jacob (Richard) Jacobs, known to all as Rick, will only take up the position of president of the Reform Movement in the summer of 2012. But the report of his appointment as head of the largest denomination in American Jewry – estimated to be some 1.5-million strong – sparked a wave of praise and compliments.“New York Rabbi Known as ...

The Necessity of Hope

Passover and Israel’s Independence Day are deeply connected. Not just the proximity of their calendar dates but because for centuries Passover, and particularly the Seder, remains the Jewish ritual celebrating our people’s freedom and independence. We turn our Seder tables into the most festive “altar,” we offer prayers of hope and thanksgiving. We lift our glass to Elijah, reaching for ...

The Long and Winding Road… to School

Each week day, 22 children living in Tijuana rise before the sun to catch a shuttle that takes them to school. Why wake so early? School isn’t just around the corner, or even in the next town over. Rather, these kids traverse 40 miles and one international border to arrive at Chabad Hebrew Academy in Poway, California.The approximately one-and-a-half hour ...

The Light of the Moon

This Shabbat being the Shabbat before Nisan, the first month of the Jewish year, in which the festival of Passover falls, is called Shabbat Hahodesh, or the Sabbath of the Month. In addition to the regular Torah portion, we read the very first commandment given to the Israelites, the command to establish a calendar based on the moon. So why ...