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 NYC mayor’s office promised Orthodox leaders report would be ‘gentle’ on yeshivas, emails show
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio personally called Orthodox leaders asking them to support his effort to retain control over the city’s schools in exchange for soft-balling a probe into the state of secular education at yeshivas, according to internal emails obtained by the New York Post. The emails from late June support a report,…
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Fast Forward NYC mayor Bill de Blasio still apologizing for Hasidic funeral tweet, one week later
Nearly a week after his tweet about a Hasidic funeral drew ire from Jews across the religious spectrum, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is still apologizing for his words — and defending his actions. In a conference call with multiple Orthodox media outlets Monday, de Blasio called the tweet — which was directed…
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News How LA’s Orthodox Jews averted the worst of the pandemic
Pandemic life in the Orthodox neighborhoods of Los Angeles for the most part resembles that of observant Jewish enclaves across the country. The shuls and schools are closed indefinitely, with Torah study and social programming held on Zoom. Synagogues post lists tracking the sick for misheberach blessings on Google spreadsheets and share them through WhatsApp….
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News De Blasio’s Tweet about a funeral soured his relationship with the Orthodox — for now
Four months ago, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s relationship with Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish communities was solid as it ever was. Amid a 20% uptick in anti-Semitic violence in the city, the mayor announced in December that his police department would beef up patrols in Borough Park, Crown Heights and Williamsburg. That same month,…
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News NYC Jewish pols press hospitals to let volunteers visit lonely virus patients
The New York State Assembly is calling on city and state health departments and city hospitals to begin a program that would allow volunteers with coronavirus antibodies to visit COVID patients, according to a joint letter signed by assembly members and city council members Kalman Yeger and Chaim Deutsch. “We propose that your hospitals create…
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Fast Forward Flatbush Jewish Journal publishes 50 pages of obituaries in most recent issue
The Flatbush Jewish Journal, a weekly Orthodox publication based in Brooklyn, published fifty pages of obituaries in its most recent issue. The obituaries painted a picture of a community devastated by coronavirus. Several pages were devoted to the Novominsker Rebbe and the Sasregener Rebbe, heads of two Hasidic dynasties who died of coronavirus in April….
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News Orthodox Jews are donating plasma by the thousands to fight COVID-19
Read this article in Yiddish Well before the rest of the world was talking about blood plasma and its use in fighting coronavirus, Dr. Shmuel Shoham knew all about it — and where he could probably get a lot of it. By early March, Shoham, an expert on infectious diseases in transplant patients at Johns…
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News Burial society organization suggests new rituals; Brooklyn funeral home overwhelmed
An Orthodox funeral home in Brooklyn, where a video shows nine shrouded bodies stacked on the floor, is so overwhelmed that on Tuesday it called for volunteers with minivans and SUVs to ferry the dead to cemeteries for burial. In a message circulated via What’s App, Menachem A. Bloom, who works at the funeral home,…
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News Texas schools want to add Queen Esther to the curriculum. Here’s why Jews (and many Christians) are opposed.
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