Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of Hasidic Judaism, a sub-group of Haredi Judaism that adheres to the historical traditions of Eastern European Jews, including communicating in Yiddish.
Hasidic
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News Women Seek To Join Hatzalah Corps
Miriam was home alone in Brooklyn’s Hasidic neighborhood of Boro Park when she birthed her second child, her water breaking unexpectedly and the baby slipping out along with it. Moments later, seven men barreled through the door. One of them took the baby, and another asked Miriam to lie down so that he could check…
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News Hasidic Gangs Battle for Jerusalem
In late October, a gang of 15 to 20 thugs armed with metal rods and clubs attacked a man on the street. They beat him, causing serious internal injuries, a head wound and cuts. And then they drove away in the commercial truck in which they came, leaving the man lying in a pool of…
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News Child Sex Arrests Spike. Or Do They?
Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes claims to have arrested an unprecedented 89 men on child sex-abuse charges in the ultra-Orthodox communities in Brooklyn over the past two years — but declines to provide any details backing up the numbers or to give the status of any of the cases. Sexual abuse survivors and their advocates…
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Life Brooklyn Bus Owner Denies Segregating Women
Yacov “Jacob” Marmurstein, owner of the company that runs the quasi-public B110 bus between Williamsburg and Boro Park, is denying that patrons are segregated by gender onboard, though he appears to be the only person unclear about the longstanding practice. The B110 bus has long required women to sit in the back while men are…
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Life Brooklyn Bus Flouts Discrimination Law
Every day sex-segregated buses for Hasidim roll right past my corner, ferrying people between Williamsburg and Boro Park. It never occurred to me to write about it. I’ve been writing and editing lots of Sisterhood stories about the sex segregation problems in Jerusalem and its environs, but I assumed that the bus line that I…
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The Schmooze City Pulls Yiddish Signs Ordering Women Aside
Municipal workers in Brooklyn have taken down signs directed at Hasidic women — not because they’re religious in content, but because of where they’re posted. The signs, written in Yiddish, direct Hasidic women in the Williamsburg neighborhood to keep a distance from their male counterparts, telling them, “Precious Jewish daughter, please move aside when a…
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Life A New Space for Women in Crown Heights
In a Hasidic community, where ritual life is separate for men and for women, there is lots of ‘women’s space,’ like their section at synagogue and at the mikvah. But recently there has been a new kind of space for women, one created by Bronya Shaffer. Bronya, a life-long adherent of the Lubavitcher rebbe and…
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Life Why Do Hasidim Live Like Saudi Women?
It looked, this week, like there might be progress for women in Saudi Arabia. King Abdullah granted women the right to vote, and to run for election to municipal councils and be appointed full voting members of the Majlis Al-Shura, a government advisory group. According to a New York Times editorial this week, however, women…
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