Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of Orthodox Judaism, which aims for a stricter observance of halachic law than Conservative or Reform Judaism. It includes Modern Orthodox Judaism, as well as Haredi (sometimes called ultra-Orthodox) Judaism,…
Orthodox Judaism
The Latest
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News Orthodox Therapists Battle Ban On Gay ‘Conversion’ Treatment
Ultra-Orthodox mental health professionals are pushing back against efforts to restrict so-called gay “conversion” therapy, a controversial practice that aims to curb or reverse patients’ same-sex attraction. Amid a growing wave of legislation banning conversion therapy for teenagers, a group known as Nefesh has joined with the ultra-Orthodox umbrella group Agudath Israel of America to…
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Life In Search of My Ethel Mertz
I never seriously considered becoming Orthodox. I like shrimp too much and Florida is way too hot for wigs. But I was tempted twenty years ago by one phone conversation. The Orthodox woman who coordinated the chevra kadisha (burial society) I participated in was calling to request my assistance at a taharah, ritual preparation of…
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Life Orthodox Feminists Are Not Conservatives in Disguise
There is a rumor going around that Orthodox feminists are just Conservative Jews in disguise, or perhaps in denial. I’ve heard this idea in many settings. I was at a dinner last year honoring Jewish feminists when a woman at my table — a Conservative rabbi and prolific writer whom I greatly admire — reproached…
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Breaking News British Orthodox Candidate Refuses To Shake Hands
An Orthodox Jewish candidate for the European Parliament has caused a stir by refusing to shake women’s hands. Shneur Odze told the members of the right-wing populist UK Independence Party, or UKIP, that he will not shake women’s hands due to his religious beliefs, which proscribe physical contact with any woman other than his wife,…
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News Suspected Frum Con Man Targets Orthodox With Elaborate Tales of Woe
Con artists have taken note: New York’s ultra-Orthodox Jews make fairly easy targets. Just slap on a kippah, a dark suit and have a sob story at the ready. Approach the target, preferably on Friday afternoon, close to Shabbat. Tell your story about the car that was towed to the pound. The wallet with the…
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Breaking News Police Allege Physical and Psychological Abuse Among Canada’s Lev Tahor Sect
Newly unsealed police search warrants allege physical and psychological abuse, forced ingestion of drugs and girls coerced into marriage among the fringe haredi Orthodox sect, Lev Tahor. The documents are part of applications for search warrants from the Quebec Provincial Police. They were unsealed on Friday at the request of several Canadian media outlets. The…
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Culture Everything He Wanted To Know About Sex Among the Orthodox
Racheli Ibenboim is a Haredi lady of the Gur dynasty, one of the most fundamentalist branches in the hasidic world. The Gur people, for one reason or another, are ever busy with ever more rules forbidding more and more “sexual temptations” of whatever kind. For example, not long ago a new prohibition was announced: A…
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Breaking News South Florida’s Jewish Community Grows Beyond Its Retirees
(JTA) — At the Urban Rustic Cafe in a strip mall in this city located between Miami to the south and the Palm Beach retirement communities to the north, the line for a table stretches out the door and into the parking lot. Inside the kosher establishment, the volume is loud. An elderly Orthodox man…
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