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Conversion in Israel: From Bethlehem to Chelm to Sodom

Once, she was called Ruth; today she is Natasha. Both of these women came to Israel to settle here and integrate into society. Ruth changed her identity, from Moabite to Jew, and her blood was mixed with our blood in the fields of Bethlehem—so much so, that according to tradition, both King David and the messiah of the future are…
14/05/2013
Patrilineal Descent in American Reform Judaism
Jewish Communities Worldwide

Patrilineal Descent in American Reform Judaism

The American Jewish Reform movement’s 1983 Patrilineal Descent decision declaring that the children of Jewish fathers have the same Jewish status as the children of Jewish mothers affected all of American Judaism, because more American Jews call themselves Reform than any other wing of Judaism. Many advocates, including the influential Rabbi Alexander Schindler, celebrated the decision as promoting "the full…
06/05/2013
Jewish Communities Worldwide
Op-Ed: Remembering Jack Kay, ‘A Giant in the Jewish World'

Op-Ed: Remembering Jack Kay, ‘A Giant in the Jewish World’

With the passing of Jack Kay, the Jewish world has lost one of its most committed community leaders and forward thinking philanthropists. A resident of Chevy Chase, Maryland and Palm Beach, Florida, Kay died on April 21 at the age of 87. Kay was chairman of the board of the Kay Management Company in Silver Spring, Maryland, and one of…
24/04/2013

Israel at 65: The Tale of a Sleeping Beauty

Has Israel been fulfilling its historic mission? There is abundant evidence that it has. Since the founding of the state in the aftermath of the Holocaust, Israel's Jewish population has grown by more than 1000%. The prophetic vision of the Return to Zion has been realized, with the Jewish people's historic homeland now home to the largest Jewish community in…
14/04/2013

The Haredi Draft: The Need for an Alliance of the Moderates

Although a great many issues are awaiting resolution on Israel's national table, the parties involved in the current coalition negotiations have been focusing on one topic: the ultra-Orthodox. The headlines have focused on the political aspect of this issue, and have concerned themselves with the question of whether or not the coalition will include the ultra-Orthodox parties. But regardless of…
27/02/2013
”The Haredi Challenge”
Ultra-Orthodox

“The Haredi Challenge”

Abstract
21/02/2013
Ultra-Orthodox

A Coalition of Hope

This is the political coming of age of a cultural and social movement that is not willing to content itself with the obsessive debate about Israel's borders conducted under the code name of "right" and "left", but chooses instead to focus on the desired nature of the state that will exist within those borders, wherever they end up. In addition…
29/01/2013

Habayit Hayehudi and Refusal of Orders: The Real Question

There are different kinds of calls for military insubordination. Some people who advocate refusal of orders are motivated by the desire to thwart the implementation of national decisions that have been made democratically; consequently, they call for mass civil disobedience or for disobedience by those who would be responsible for implementing the national decision, such as air force pilots ordered,…
26/12/2012

Religious Zionism: Integration or Isolation?

Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, one of the most important rabbis of the Religious Zionist community, has stated that it is forbidden for women to serve in the Knesset because it is a breach of modesty. As he sees it, the public exposure that is involved in political life is not reconcilable with the religious principle of "all the honor of the…
29/10/2012
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