Michael A. Helfand is an expert on religious law and religious liberty. He is currently the Brenden Mann Foundation Chair in Law and Religion at Pepperdine Caruso School of Law, Visiting Professor and Oscar M. Ruebhausen Distinguished Fellow at Yale Law School, and Senior Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute. He is also Senior Legal Advisor to the Orthodox Union’s Teach Coalition.
Michael A. Helfand
By Michael A. Helfand
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Opinion An Indiana court ruled that Jews have a religious liberty right to abortion. Here’s why that matters.
The ruling suggests that a Jewish right to abortion is no longer merely a theoretical argument in the United States
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Opinion Social media is a powerful tool to lobby for Jewish divorce. A court nearly took it away
Without receiving a Jewish divorce document, Jewish law prohibits women from remarrying
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Opinion Religion won at the Supreme Court, but not as big as people think
The court issued relatively modest decisions on behalf of the worker seeking Sundays off and the anti-LGBTQ+ web designer
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Opinion Must your employer accommodate your Shabbat observance? That’s up to the Supreme Court
The decision in Groff v. DeJoy will have a significant impact on American Jews and other religious minorities who require accommodation of their religious practices
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Opinion Why shouldn’t religious schools get funding for special education?
A group of Jewish parents and schools are fighting California for equal access to government money
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Opinion Is Yeshiva University entitled to state funds? Religion has little to do with it
YU’s identification as a religious institution would not render it ineligible for the state funds in question, raising serious questions about why this whole kerfuffle got started in the first place.
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Opinion A new case before the Supreme Court could make Shabbat observance easier
Groff v. DeJoy is looking to expand the religious accommodations employers must provide
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Opinion Free speech or discrimination? SCOTUS hears the case of a web designer refusing to work with same-sex couples
Only 4 years after the "baker case," another Colorado resident claims providing services to LGBTQ couples violates her rights
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FIRST PERSON As a rabbi, he helped others mourn. So why wouldn’t his daughter say kaddish for him?
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