Tag: religious

A rabbi in Bavaria, Germany, has been slapped with criminal charges of committing bodily harm, in the first known case to arise from an anti-circumcision ruling.

Criminal assault charges have been filed against the rabbi of the Jewish community in oberfränkischen Hof, Rabbi David Goldberg, for circumcision for religious reasons....

Here's a story about pots rebuking kettles over the issue of blackness: Al Ahram reported on Monday that the extremist Salafist Nour Party will be sending a delegation to the Sinai Peninsula to "raise religious awareness and combat extremism." Among those going are the Salafist Calling movement’s head Yasser Borhami and its spokesperson Abdel-Moneim El-Shahat, both of whom have made a number of controversial statements in the past.

The College of Charleston received $2 million to be split between Jewish life on campus and full tuition scholarships for the children of clergy...

Many Israelis do not know the rules of the game of the Middle East: the more we show enthusiasm for something, the higher its price rises, and the opposite holds true as well: the less interest we express in something, the lower the demanded price will be. If we announce day and night that we want peace with our enemies or to obtain the release of a kidnapped soldier who is in their hands - the price for the peace or the soldier will be more than we can pay.

The co-founder and former chairman of the MyIsrael (Yisrael Sheli) national movement, the recipient of the 2012 Abramowitz Israeli Prize for Media Criticism and a close associate of Naftali Bennett – the two worked together in the office of Benjamin Netanyahu prior to the 2009 elections – Shaked is raising some eyebrows due to the fact that she, unlike Bennett, is a secular candidate for HaBayit Hayehudi -a traditionally religious party.

About a month ago, I received an email from a 16 year-old girl from Europe, saying that she was on the way to the airport to fly to Israel. She said that her mother read my blogs at The Jewish Press and hoped that maybe I could help her, not knowing where else to turn. She wants to finish high school in Israel, make aliyah, and go into the army. Her present high school is all gentile and Moslem and very anti-Semitic. Could I help her, she asked?

"The zigzaggy conduct of Naftali Bennet is classic opportunism, and the public will judge him for it, his plan is nothing but empty spin,” said on Monday Minister Daniel Hershkowitz, head of the "Jewish Home" Knesset faction. Hershkowitz was referring to the candidacy of MKs Zevulun Arlov and Naftali Bennet, and quoted an opinion piece published last weekend by Mekor Rishon's pundit Sofia Ron-Moria, where she quipped that she "won’t buy a used car from Bennet or Orlov."

As the lights dimmed on Broadway for 60 seconds last night in memory of Oscar-winning composer Marvin Hamlisch, who died on Monday, I took a moment to reflect on the moment in 1976 when I interviewed Hamlisch.

The State Department wont let the Jerusalem-born children of US parents, to list Jerusalem, ISRAEL on their US passport for fear of upsetting the Arab world, yet you criticize Israel for not allowing Jews freedom of prayer on the Temple Mount?

A bipartisan group of 20 Congressmen sent a letter to the German government expressing “deep concern” over a recent German court decision to effectively...

She told an Israeli reporter about her plans: "I get on the surfboard, say 'Shma Israel, Hashem Elokeino Hashem Echad' and I go to war."

Religious groups are calling for tolerance after six people were killed in a shooting attack at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin. The Anti-Defamation League condemned...

Over 3,000 years ago, an ancient Jewish holiday was celebrated by the maidens of Israel. Dressed in white, soon-to-be brides would dance in the community of Shiloh in Samaria, the temporary capital of Israel before the first Temple was built in Jerusalem.

Unless otherwise noted, all quotations are from “The Forerunners – Dutch Jewry in the North America Diaspora” by Robert P. Swierenga, Wayne State University...

A few years ago, Rabbi Michael Broyde wrote an analysis of the Halacha requiring married women to cover their hair. Although he in no way said that a married woman may uncover her hair he suggested that it is possible to say that there were Halachic sources that may have permitted it in certain social circumstances.

David Ha'ivri, director of the Shomron Liaison Office, responds to a Jewishpress.com story about Jewish groups that expressed concern over Congresswoman Michele Bachmann's efforts to uncover the relationship between Huma Abedin, top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and leading figures in the Muslim Brotherhood.

What distinguishes a jihadi terrorist from a more peaceful Muslim may not be any fundamental difference in belief, but, as in the West, merely in a given instance, how the religious legal principles of his faith should be applied.

The situation in Syria is deteriorating quickly, and the state is literally disintegrating. The cracks in the government are widening; ambassadors, generals and soldiers are deserting, some branches of the Ba'ath party are announcing their secession from the regime, the Russian advisers are fleeing for their lives and the feeling that the end is near is taking hold more and more. Not the end of Asad, but of Syria. Not the regime, but the system.

Last Thursday the recruitment began at the "Netzach Yehuda" Haredi battalion of the Kfir Brigade, as more than 200 anxious ultra-Orthodox recruits arrived at the processing center. Last year, some 380 soldiers joined the regiment, and according to official data from the Department of Manpower, the current cycle will see an increase of 33% in the number of recruits.

Jewish groups were among the 42 religious and secular organizations that told five members of Congress that their recent allegations of Muslim Brotherhood infiltration...

Rabbi Meir Kahane published this in The Jewish Press 40 years ago. Some things just don’t seem to change: A religion which develops a split personality is a religion in danger. A faith whose adherents begin to merely pay lip service to its tenets is in the first stages of atrophy. When individuals create a dichotomy between what they believe and what they practice, it calls for serious re-evaluation. The dream of settling in Israel is a basic part of the Jewish faith. It is an obligation, but it is more than that; it is a dream.

Yishai and Malkah give a touching memorial for a friend and talk about the difference between religious and secular Jews in the IDF.

There is no political ideology, government program, or redistribution of wealth that is going to cure humanity’s ills. In today’s secular, even anti-religious, Western society, religious people are seen as aggressive, intolerant, and foolish. But there are two things a decent religious person possesses that others don’t: A belief that there is a divine judge, which may make them curb their behavior; and a desire for self-improvement, to reduce their sins and strive for something higher.

A ban by some Orthodox Brooklyn shopkeepers on customers’ cleavage and bare shoulders has raised the ire of some local consumers.

An opinion poll indicates that, despite the political initiative to have the Cologne verdict overruled by a law later this year, a majority of Germans favor a ban of male circumcision. In a Europe that is becoming ever more secular, there is a real danger that religious practices will gradually be pushed aside in order to assure that the impression is not given that little children and -in ritual slaughter- animals are made to suffer.

Germany's parliament called on the government to step in to protect the right to religious circumcision of boys, as long as it is done...

A few days ago, en route to the south of Italy, there was a heated exchange between an Italian chief steward and two Egyptian sheikhs wearing the robes of the Egyptian religious university, Al-Azhar. The dispute erupted over where the sheikhs were to sit on the plane: the steward insisted they sit in their assigned seats in economy class, while they insisted on moving to business class. They relayed their extreme displeasure at what they called European arrogance & inflexibility.

The recently highlighted "crisis of Zionism" is in fact a quandary afflicting Jewry and no new phenomenon. Rather, it has two sources, each centuries old.

After what German diplomats have described as a "disastrous" damage to Germany's image abroad, especially in light of its Nazi past, it appears that Berlin has finally gotten the message.