Posted on: May 18th, 2012

In a precedent setting decision, the Chief Judge of the Jerusalem Rabbinical Court Rabbi Eliyahu Abergel this week freed a woman from her aguna status (separated from her husband but unable to marry another) and annulled her marriage because the witnesses who signed the ketubah were not Shabbat observers. The plaintiff's husband had fled Israel to Florida and was refusing to sign a get.

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Posted on: May 15th, 2012

On the issue of ultra-Orthodox military service, 41% of those surveyed said they would be moderately or very interested in joining the Haredi IDF program, while 59% said they had either little or no interest. Still, the percentage of interest is substantially higher than the current annual rate of Haredi enlistment in the IDF.

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Posted on: May 9th, 2012

President Obama on Wednesday went on the record with a statement that he now supports same-sex marriage, a reversal of his longstanding opposition. While US public opinion on this issue has seemingly reached a point of no return, the debate within Orthodox Judaism has centered on accepting gays rather than legitimizing the gay agenda. But a few cracks have appeared even in that wall.

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Posted on: May 3rd, 2012

A Vatican representative has issued a call for the world’s foremost religions to unite to take a stand against gay marriage. Archbishop Antonio Mennini, the “Apostolic Nuncio” (Vatican representative) to Great Britain has proposed enlisting the help of all Christian denominations, as well as Jews and Muslims, to oppose the proposition of legalizing gay marriage […]

Posted on: April 30th, 2012

‘Global Winds of Change’ Conference addresses role of religion in democracies and changing societies.

Posted on: April 20th, 2012

Three young Hindu women who were kidnapped, forcibly converted to Islam and married off to Muslim men, chose this week to live with their husbands instead of their families. It has been rumored that the three women had been threatened by Pakistan People's Party parliamentarian Mian Mithu with "dire consequences" if they decided to return to their parents.

Posted on: April 8th, 2012

Adnan Oktar (also known by his pen name Harun Yahya), a prominent Turkish intellectual and religious leader with mass following, has communicated and met personally over the past decade with many Orthodox rabbis from Israel and abroad, expressing his friendship to the Jewish nation and his reverence to the Torah. Oktar has sent the Jewish Press his blessing to the Jewish nation on the occasion of Passover.

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Posted on: April 3rd, 2012

The air at the event in Jerusalem was rife with the kind of excitement one finds in rock concerts. The thick crowd pushed, shoved, pressed, retreated temporarily, then pushed as relentlessly and eagerly as before. If the core idea of the entire event was to urge our Redemption from above by starting it down below, then this one had to have cut through a whole bunch of "klipot."

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Posted on: April 1st, 2012

Barbara Cadranel, a renowned harpsichordist who delights audiences around the world with her unique interpretation of Baroque as well as contemporary music, says she's feeling "violated." The attorney for her Condo Association says his client permits residents to display religious objects on the outside of their doors, but not on "the frame around the door." One neighbor suggested the mezuzah could be a fire hazard…

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Posted on: March 21st, 2012

Speaking at last Friday's prayer at the North London Central Mosque, also known as Finsbury Park Mosque—and formerly controlled by convicted terrorist recruiter Abu Hamza al-Masri—Ken Livingstone, the Labor party's candidate for mayor of London, pledged to "educate the mass of Londoners" about Islam.

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Posted on: March 20th, 2012

The bodies of the four victims of yesterday’s shooting attack at the Otzar Hatorah school in Toulouse will be flown back to Israel for burial later Tuesday night, arriving in Israel at 4 a.m. local time. The funeral is scheduled to take place at 10 a.m. in Jerusalem. “The Jewish community in France is still in shock and cannot fully comprehend the scope of the disaster.”

Posted on: March 15th, 2012

A young woman in Bnei Brak, Israel, had a problem Wednesday: she was about to get married, but the streets outside the wedding hall, situated next to Kiryat Vishnitz, also in Bnei Brak, were packed with thousands of Vishnitz Hasidim who came to pay their last respects to the Vishnitzer Rebbe. She called the ZAKA (a humanitarian volunteer organization) hotline.

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Posted on: March 14th, 2012

The United Methodist General Board of Pension and Health Benefits (GBPHB) voted unanimously againt divestment in three companies which do business in Judea, Samaria, and the Golan Heights, according to a report by the Israel Action Network, a project of the Jewish Federations of North America and the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

Posted on: March 7th, 2012

The Arab side in the dispute over Jewish right of access to the holiest Jewish site, has now been taken up by Israel's Chief Rabbis, who emphatically prohibit emphatically any entrance by a Jewish person onto the Temple Mount. The unexpected ruling, on the eve of Purim, is being met with strong objections from senior Rabbis who have been visiting the holy mountain since 1967.

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Posted on: March 5th, 2012

"Magen" is a new Child Protection Agency operating in Ramat Beit Shemesh, whose Haredi vs. National Religious and Secular clamorous encounters made headlines a month or so ago. But Magen deals with a quieter, more sinister aspect of life in this area. Founded two years ago, Magen now reports the presence of at least 36 suspected child abusers in the community of Ramat Beit Shemesh.

Posted on: March 4th, 2012

"You know it’s a myth … and you have a choice," the billboards declare, in Patterson in English and Arabic, and in Brooklyn in English and Hebrew. Next to the text on the Arabic billboard is the word Allah, and on the Hebrew sign is the Hebrew word for the Tetragrammaton, which Jews are not permitted to pronounce. Including the "Shem ham'forash" in the Hebrew billboard is particularly provocative, since it is sacred and so may not be erased in print, presenting protesters with a dilemma.

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