My first reaction to the ugly confrontation at the Western Wall on Friday was to be appalled and sickened. Attacks carried out mostly by ultra-Orthodox men, who heckled, shouted, and threw things at approximately 100 members of Women of the Wall attempting to pray at Judaism’s most sacred site, were a chillul Hashem, a desecration…
Images of police detaining women for public worship at the Western Wall could be a thing of the past, after an important ruling today by the Jerusalem District Court. A judge considered the main grounds that police cite for detaining members of Women of the Wall, the interdenominational feminist group that gathers monthly for prayers…
Within a matter of months, the congregation at Touro Synagogue will celebrate the 250th anniversary of America’s oldest Jewish house of worship. But the members of Congregation Jeshuat Israel, who have prayed at the Newport, R.I., building for generations, may have to celebrate outside. That’s because an argument over a dazzling pair of silver Torah…
New York businessman Jacob Ostreicher, who has been jailed in Bolivia for 18 months, was released on Tuesday on bail at the order of a judge. The judge, Eneas Gentilli ordered Ostreicher to post a bail equal to $14,400 and to stay in house arrest within the city of Santa Cruz. According to the Associated…
Israel’s highest court has urged defence officials to reroute a barrier planned for construction on ancient farmland at a West Bank Palestinian village. Israeli judges have ordered changes in Israel’s barrier through occupied land before, but the latest decision followed a rare appeal involving support from an Israeli government environmental agency for a Palestinian challenge….
A New Jersey man suspected of the 1979 killing of 6-year-old Etan Patz pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to murder and kidnapping charges, six months after police said he confessed to a chilling crime that has long haunted New Yorkers. Pedro Hernandez, 51, of Maple Shade, New Jersey, said during police questioning in May that…
A Bolivian appeals court refused to release New York businessman Jacob Ostreicher, who has been jailed without charges for 18 months, instead sending his case back to a lower court. Ostreicher, a haredi Orthodox father of five and grandfather of 11 from Brooklyn, N.Y., was arrested in June 2011 by Bolivian police after it was…
A constitutional court in Poland reportedly has ruled against allowing Jewish and Muslim ritual slaughter in the country. The Warsaw court’s ruling, which was made known on Tuesday, said the government had acted unconstitutionally when it exempted Jews and Muslims from stunning animals before slaughtering them as their faiths require, according to Piotr Kadlcik, president…
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