The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday appeared deeply conflicted over what kind of public prayers should be acceptable at a town meeting as the justices confronted the delicate constitutional issue of church-and-state separation. The court is weighing whether the practice of allowing mainly Christian prayers before public meetings in the town of Greece, New York,…
A friend of mine posted a crowd-sourcing question on Facebook one day: “What are things you try to do every day?” I’m not sure the reason for her question — though she is a cognitive psychology student studying morality — but it stuck with me, mostly because it was something that seems to capture a…
Women of the Wall has agreed in principle to pray in a new egalitarian space adjacent to the Western Wall Plaza, provided that the new section meets several of its conditions regarding the new section’s design and management. Until those conditions are met, Women of the Wall said in a statement that it will continue…
More than 100 women gathered for a Women of the Wall service at the Western Wall, praying in the women’s section with no physical barriers enclosing them, little police protection and minimal disruption from protesters. Women of the Wall gather at the Western Wall for a women’s prayer service at the beginning of each Jewish…
The fate of a congressional resolution to authorize President Barack Obama’s planned military strikes on Syria hinges on scores of undecided U.S. lawmakers, with party loyalty appearing increasingly irrelevant. Even after congressional hearings featuring Obama’s secretaries of state and defense, a half dozen closed-door briefings and phone calls from Obama himself, it was too close…
Suddenly everyone is talking about Syria. Two years of mayhem and murder, confusion and hesitation. 100,000 Syrians killed, a quarter of the population turned refugees, and now hundreds have been gassed to death, a sight which no Jew – no human – can ignore; a sight which once seen, cannot go unanswered. As we enter…
A Jordanian government minister condemned Israel’s construction of a new prayer space south of the existing Western Wall Plaza. Jordan’s State Minister for Media Affairs Mohammad Momani on Monday called the construction of a platform in the area for egalitarian prayer “a blatant attack on the Muslim monuments and Wakf land which is an integral…
Minister of Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs Naftali Bennett made an attempt to reconcile Diaspora Jews and released a letter to World Jewry ahead of the new Jewish year explaining his plan to resolve the ongoing dispute over the rights of non-Orthodox Jews, including women, to pray at the Western Wall according to their customs. According…
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