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Breaking News Beit Shemesh Removes Partition Between Secular and Haredi Students
The city of Beit Shemesh ordered the removal of a wall that had been set up inside a local elementary school to separate its secular and Orthodox pupils. The corrugated galvanized iron wall was erected last week in the yard of the secular Safot VeTarbuyot school to separate its pupils from girls attending the Haredi…
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The Schmooze Joan Rivers’ Most Jewish Comedy Moments
Getty Images In the world of brassy, chutzpadik funny ladies, nobody has done it better and longer than Joan Rivers. The lady is a legend, a trailblazer, who made way for the candid, feminist humor of women like Sarah Silverman and Amy Schumer and a whole generation of female comics who have the courage to…
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Breaking News Haredi School in Beit Shemesh Barred From Using Secular School Building
A Jerusalem court issued a restraining order against a haredi Orthodox girls’ school in Beit Shemesh from using part of a secular school’s building. The order issued Tuesday against the haredi school, Mishkenot Daat, was requested by the Ministry of Education, which also ordered it to close for operating without a license. The closure order…
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Israel News Bulletproof Hasidic Feminists Rock Out
The bar adjacent to the concert venue on Manhattan’s Lower East Side was packed. Orange Christmas lights lined the wooden rafters on the ceiling of Arlene’s Grocery, casting the 70 or so people queuing up in a soft red glow. But all those waiting to see the rock band Bulletproof Stockings were women. As Hasidic…
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Music Hasidic Rock Band Takes to Stage — No Men Allowed
Bulletproof Stockings // Facebook It isn’t everyday that Arlene’s Grocery hosts a show for women only. But that’s what will happen Thursday night when the all-female Hasidic rock band Bulletproof Stockings takes the stage at the iconic Lower East Side venue. The modesty prohibition of kol isha states that Hasidic women cannot sing in front…
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Israel News Sex, War, Social Media and the Israeli Imagination
The war in Gaza, known in Israel as Operation Strong Cliff, may have wound down. But memories still linger of the parallel Facebook campaign called Girls Keeping the Cliff Strong. The Facebook campaign, which drew tens of thousands of clicks during the fighting, highlights the often troubling implications during war time of the relationship between…
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Life The Fight Against ‘Immodesty Signs’ in Beit Shemesh
Nili Philipp (third from right) and other residents outside the Beit Shemesh court house / Courtesy of Nili Philipp Beit Shemesh has featured prominently in the news over the past several years as a hot spot for violations against women and girls, from the Orot school scandal to several highly publicized assaults against women, to…
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News Taxonomy of the Sheitel
When I was 17, a matchmaker introduced me to my future husband. My family and I knew it was an auspicious match from the get-go: The boy and I were both Satmar Hasidism; we came from the same town, Kiryas Joel; we were socialized in similar circles, and we observed the same religious rules. But…
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Fast Forward Why neo-Nazis marched in Ohio this weekend, and almost every weekend in the US
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Opinion The group behind Project 2025 has a plan to protect Jews. It will do the opposite.
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Opinion Just about every interpretation of Trump’s narrow election victory is wrong
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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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Opinion I’ve studied Alfred Dreyfus, he was a moral prophet — Benjamin Netanyahu, you are no Alfred Dreyfus
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Fast Forward Justin Trudeau condemns antisemitism after Montreal pro-Palestinian protest where Netanyahu is burned in effigy
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Culture There aren’t Jewish fighters in Ridley Scott’s ‘Gladiator II.’ But what about in ancient Rome?
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Fast Forward Three arrested in murder of rabbi in United Arab Emirates; Israel denounces ‘despicable antisemitic act’
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