יום שני, י״ג אב תשפ״וMonday, July 27, 2026
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By JTA
A bill that would allow more rabbis to conduct conversions in Israel advanced in the Knesset. The coalition government-backed bill passed its first reading by a vote of 28 to 16 in the Knesset plenum on Monday night. Under the measure, as many as 30 courts made up of municipal rabbis would be allowed for […]
By JTA
Kerry can like it or not, but sooner or later he has to deal with the issue of the Temple Mount.
Haredi youth have no excuse to dodge the draft, unless they really don’t want to learn Torah.
The next presidents of Israel as well as the United States might be women.
Israelis not only live where the world says they are forbidden but also teach Torah as a Light unto the Nations.
By JTA
Will the Haredi rabbi who prefers U.S. army uniforms to those of IDF on Purim tell U.S. Haredim to fight for Uncle Sam?
By David Morris
The new election date of March 11 was announced by the Ministry of Interior.
By JTA
Israeli lawmaker David Rotem offered a full apology for reportedly saying the Reform movement “is not Jewish.”
An Israel Knesset Member got a whack on his tongue for angering the Diaspora.
Haredim could turn hate into love by serving in the army and showing non-religious soldiers the Light of Torah,
Reform leaders too often make themselves look silly by bending the Bible for their own convenience.
The Israeli Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the government to cease all funding of yeshivas whose students do not enlist in the IDF. The decision struck in one blow further sealed the fate of Haredi leaders fighting the “equal burden” policy pursued by Yesh Atid party leader Yair Lapid and also gave him a needed […]
The difference between Yair Netanyahu and Anthony Weiner and Hillary Clinton is that Israel is a Jewish state.
The Lehava Organization for the Prevention of Assimilation in the Holy Land appealed to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu Sunday to break up his son Yair’s relationship with a Norwegian non-Jew. Yair Netanyahu is dating Sandra Leikange a fellow student, Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, The Jewish Press reported here earlier today. Citing the Prime Minister’s late […]
Dozens of Jerusalem Haredim allegedly hurled rocks on Friday night, after the Sabbath began, at Arab vehicles on Route 1 that bypasses Mea Shearim, according to the Bethlehem-based Ma'an News Agency. The news agency claimed that the attacks “were racially-motivated assaults targeting Palestinians,” while police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said there had been no reports of […]
By Shalom Bear
The IDF wants more Religious-Zionist girls to sign up, and is planning on taking steps to make the IDF more attractive for them.
Even after suffering shocks from a Taser gun, he refused to sign on the administrative order.
By JTA
The Israeli Chief Rabbinate has come to its sense before letting the damage get out of control.
By JTA
Israeli government money was transferred for the first time to the Reform Movement in Israel to pay the salaries of four community Reform rabbis. The transfer of the more than $86,000 on Wednesday comes 18 months after Israel’s Supreme Court approved an arrangement to enable non-Orthodox spiritual leaders who lead congregations to receive state salaries […]
Chabad emissaries would share the same status as those who do national service.
Some Russian-descent students just don’t understand that Israel is a Jewish state, Mahmoud Abbas notwithstanding.
Haredi political leaders across the board called a court ruling for new elections in Beit Shemesh” corrupt,” “racist” and a sign of “dictatorship,” among other less than complimentary adjectives. The court accepted a petition by Attorney General Yehudah Weinstein that documented corruption in the voting October 22 as ground for voiding the election results, which […]
By Tibbi Singer
Lapid's insistence on legislation rather than a unilateral fix by his office has actually been hurting gays.
The rabbinical leader of the Vishnitz Chas - the new Knesset law that Haredim must serve in the army just like every Jew in the country. The two rabbis spoke for approximately 15 minutes, a relatively long time, and spoke “words of Torah and subjects that are on the agenda,” the Haredi website Kikar HaShabbat […]
Israel’s Supreme Court has suspended a Rabbinical Court (Beit Din) order that a woman in divorce proceedings allow her baby son, now one year old, to be circumcised. The woman also was ordered to pay a fine of $150 for each day the brit mila is not performed. She originally objected to circumcision because she […]
By JTA
A mother in Israel has appealed to the country’s Supreme Court a rabbinical court ruling requiring her to circumcise her son. In her appeal filed Wednesday, the mother said the rabbis cannot order her to circumcise her son, who is now a year old. The Jerusalem rabbinical court last month upheld the ruling of the […]
The Lithuanian Council of Torah Sages and the Hasidic Council of Torah Sages organized two protests in Bnei Brak and Jerusalem Monday against a Knesset committee in the process of adding details to the new draft law requiring almost all Israeli Jewish youth to report for military duty. “They are trying to bring us closer […]
The Taharat HaBayit organization has been using a 4-wheel-drive jeep to take snowbound women in Jerusalem to the local mikveh, the ritual immersing pool. "The organization's top priority is raising awareness to the importance of the family purity mitzvah," the organization's chairman, Rabbi Yechezkel Mutzafi, explained to the Hebrew-language Yediot Acharonot’s website. "We see it […]
By Tibbi Singer
The local security coordinator tried to alert the Army, but his calls were not answered.
The snowstorm’s delay of Kerry’s meeting with Netanyahu finally gives Abbas a chance to explain why Israel must not exist as a Jewish state.
All the boys were called up together, and recited – for the very first time – the blessing for being called to the Torah, with their interpreter.
Mike Huckabee doesn’t understand why Jews support Obama as “pro-Israel” because he doesn’t understand the psyche of a liberal American Jewish Democrat.
By JTA
A new initiative will use Jewish law to help “Agunot” women, separated from husbands who refuse to grant them a divorce that would let them re-marry.
None of us support violence and we found out about the story in the media, just like every one else.
The issue of women becoming involved in synagogue services to the point of holding a Torah scroll is as loaded in the Diaspora than it is in Israel.
By David Morris
"The findings of the police investigation indicate serious criminal activity."
There is a glimmer of hope in fighting corrupt elections in Israel, which is no worse than anywhere else but simply more obvious.
By JTA
Israel’s Chief Rabbinate issued restrictions on the extent to which mikvah attendants may question and interact with women visiting the ritual baths. According to a letter sent Monday from the Chief Rabbinate to Itim, an organization that helps Israelis navigate the rabbinate’s bureaucracy, mikvah attendants may not question women visiting the baths, nor may they […]
Israel’s Supreme Court soon may have to decide if it wants to set off fireworks and take on a case that involves the authority of a rabbinical court to order a circumcision.
A police raid on two homes before the elections last month uncovered 250 false identification cards that people intended to use to cast extra ballots.
The festival marked the 90th birthday of President Shimon Peres, and the 100th birthday of late Prime Minster Menachem Begin.
“He is innocent until proven guilty” is one expression. “Where there is smoke, there is fire,” is another. Rabbi Metzger has been arrested for pocketing money for charities. That is not holy smoke.
By Tibbi Singer
Will the secretary of State understand that the Israeli wine renaissance is taking place in the Shomron region, and therefore we're not letting it go?
The idea of “One Rabbi for One People” sounds lovely, but can Jews really get along with each other if they have nothing to argue about?
Several hundred women dare to pray near the Western Wall where they usually are prohibited. Several hundred men also are there. Women of the Wall? No. Meet the Women of the Temple Mount.
It is absolutely critical that religious Jewish girls have a support network throughout their IDF service.
Israel has unaccustomed company in its fight against a “bad deal” with Iran. Saudi Arabia and Egypt oppose it. Now, Netanyahu appeals to American Jews to tell Obama and Kerry, “No, you can’t.”
Women of the Wall Vice Chair Batya Kallus serves as an adviser to Sikkuy, a signatory to the Haifa Declaration calling for the abolishing of the State of Israel.
The certification ceremony took place during the 10th annual spiritual care conference.
By JTA
See also: Brave New Nation: 30 New Rabbinical Courts to Process Conversions. A bill that would allow local rabbis to oversee conversions will be introduced to the parliament after passing a Knesset committee. Under the measure advanced Sunday by the Ministerial Committee for Legislation, a city rabbi could convene a beit din, or rabbinical court, […]
By JTA
In a display of the changes the group has experienced this year, Women of the Wall held a peaceful prayer service under police protection at the Western Wall to mark the group’s 25th anniversary. Absent from Monday’s service, which the group said drew at least 800 worshipers, were large crowds of Orthodox girls who had […]
The new law that the Knesset passed Monday night to allow couples to register for marriages wherever they want will help prevent civil marriages abroad and stop a wave of assimilation, according to the Tzohar Rabbinical Organization “Local rabbinates functioned as mini-monopolies, causing widespread resentment among both religious and secular couples,” the Tzohar group said. […]
Yair Lapid, chairman of the Yesh Atid party and Finance Minister, has agreed to a request from a Jewish Home Knesset Member to cancel a scheduled budget cut of $14 million (50 million shekels) earmarked for foreign students studying in yeshivas in Israel. The funds will be for Haredi as well as national religious yeshivas […]
A seemingly minor law on where couples can register for marriage permits passed the Knesset and opens a new era in which Israelis will not be at the mercy of Haredi rabbis’ demands.
Now here is a real ‘woman at the Wall.” Paula Adbul is in Israel for the first time ever and will visit the Western Wall. At the age of 51, the time finally has come for a Bat Mitzvah.
By Shalom Bear
After weeks of waking up to predawn darkness, Israel is finally turning back the clocks one hour, on Sunday morning.
The warped “Jewish and democratic” equation is about to be bent out of shape again with Yesh Atid bills to allow homosexual “unions” and public bus transportation on the Sabbath.
Jews visit Rachel’s Tomb Tuesday to pray that she cries for them. Today, the anniversary of her death, the Palestinian Authority has failed to turn it into a Muslim holy site. Chalk up one for the truth.
Thirteen Jews were arrested for being on the Temple Mount for praying.
Temple Mount Institute official and professional tour guide Yehuda Glick, an American, sent us his version of events as of last Thursday.
Another Big Lie is exposed. Rav Ovadia favored giving up land for peace in 1993. But when the PA blew up the Oslo Accords 10 years later, the rabbi ruled, “Oslo is null and void. This is not the peace I meant.”
No matter how secular Israeli Jews may appear, the glow of Torah burns somewhere inside almost everyone. Peres was not pretending when he called Rav Ovadia his “teacher.” His tears were real.
The Women of the Wall are unhappy again. Yes, they can read from the Torah, but now that have no scroll. It was damaged by dampness, and WoW blames the government for lack of proper storage.
By Batya Medad
Our people in Jewish Home and Likud kept campaigning that they had to be in the coalition to influence government. They're in now, and what influence do they have?
If the Women of the Wall want equality with men, why don’t they try to perform the Priestly Blessing at the Western Wall? Do tribal distinctions contradict “equality?” If so, who needs a Reform "rabbi?"
The IDF is nothing if not innovative. For soldiers who are on the front lines during the Yom Kippur Fast, the army suggests they suck on popsicles to keep their strength without violating to laws of the fast.
Israel has one life support. It starts with Yom Kippur.
‘Peace talks’ are an excuse to avoid THE issue - the Temple Mount – but the PA pushes it in media, warns of religious war. Housing Minister blesses at the site. Fatah terrorists warn of ‘violent Friday.”
Baltimore native Rabbi Avraham Leventhal, who moved to Beit Shemesh eight years ago after making aliyah, has tossed his hat in the political ring and is running for a seat on the city council. Elections will take place October 22. Another former American, Rabbi Dov Lipman, also was active in politics after making aliyah. He […]
Justice Minister Tzipi Livni has appointed the first woman as one of the members of the State Committee for the Appointment of Rabbinical Court Judges. Dr. Rachel Levmore, director of the Project for the Prevention of Agunot and Get-Refusal of the International Young Israel Movement and the Jewish Agency, was named to the panel based […]
In the Jewish State, religious Jews are kept by secular politicians on the command of Arab executives from setting foot on the holiest place on Earth.
The Women of the Wall was so focused on Haredim that the girls forgot to ask Jordan for permission to pray in their own minyan. Now maybe the WoW will wake up to reality and pray on the Temple Mount.
Bayit Yehudi announced that NIS 65 million of government funding earmarked for Hesder and Haredi Yeshivas will be transferred before Rosh Hashanah. The money was supposed to have been transferred a while ago, but Yair Lapid's Finance Ministry has been holding up the transfer after they realized that Haredi Yeshivas would also benefit from this […]
By Anav Silverman, Tazpit News Agency
Jerusalem Sacred Music Festival attracts array of international musicians.
Netanyahu demands that that Mahmoud Abbas recognize Israel as a Jewish state, but if it wants foreign journalists to do so, perhaps it should not call Rosh HaShanah-Yom Kippur-Sukkot “autumn holidays.”
His son, the recently elected Chief Rabbi Yizhak Yosef, took his place teaching the class last night.
Roger ‘Pink Floyd’ Waters learns not to start up with Israelis, especially a woman. And especially supermodel Bar Rafaeli. She exposed his hypocrisy of boycotting Israel but using her photo for his concerts.
By JTA
The Los Angeles-born woman, whose daughter was spat on by extreme Haredim in Beit Shemesh, has given up her fight for religious tolerance and leaves the city , but she blames modern orthodox Jews.
By JTA
Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky will release his full plan for a compromise among religious groups at the Western Wall in two weeks, Haaretz reported. Under Sharansky’s plan, first reported in April, an existing egalitarian section of the wall known as Robinson’s Arch would be expanded and a unified entrance would be built leading […]
Radical Haredim rioted in Jerusalem and in Beit Shemesh, west of Jerusalem, on Monday because of construction at sites that they said contain Jewish graves. Police took into custody at least 14 rioters. The Haredim in Jerusalem’s Mea Shearim and Geula neighborhoods set garbage containers on fire following a rabbinical ruled against claims of the […]
By JTA
The Beitar Jerusalem soccer team announced that it will stop playing on Shabbat in order to allow its religious and traditional fans to attend team home games. Home games will be held on Saturday nights or weekdays, according to the announcement by the team’s new owner Eli Tabib. Beitar Jerusalem made headlines earlier this year […]
The Religious Council of Petach Tikvah, located next to Tel Aviv, is generally known to give problems for couple wanting to get married by modern orthodox rabbis registered with the Tzohar organization, a rabbi told The Jewish Press Thursday. Responding to the reported plight of a young man whose request for a certificate that he […]
Haredi Knesset Member Moshe Gafni said he doesn’t mind if yeshivas are monitored to make sure those enrolled are learning so long as universities get the same treatment. He had commented in the Maariv newspaper that students who do not actually learn day and night in yeshivas should serve in the army. MK Gafni, answering […]
On a Jerusalem bus driving in Givat Shaul on Kanfei Nesharim street, a Haredi man asked a secular woman to move to the back of the bus, according to a report in YNet. At that point, a secular man, also on the bus, got up and punched the Haredi man in the face and then […]
The Western Wall rabbi Wednesday may have taken the first step towards surrendering the Kotel to Muslims. He asked women and Temple Mount activists to respect Muslim sensitivities and to stay away.
The Shas Haredi party can’t see past its black hat. Most of 91 Yesha towns now on the national priority list are near dangerous borders. Beitar Illit is not. Obviously, that’s discrimination, says Shas.
Bennett lost the battle for Chief Rabbis but he may have won the war. A Knesset Channel poll shows Jewish Home party as the second largest, only three seats behind the Likud and three ahead of Lapid.
147 out of 150 members of the election body voted.
Rabbi Ratzon Arusi withdrew his candidacy for Chief Sephardi Rabbi, one hour before balloting began Wednesday afternoon. His withdrawal leaves three candidates in the race. On Tuesday, Be’er Sheva Chief Rabbi Yehuda Deri and Jerusalem Rabbinical Court head Rabbi Eliyahu Abergel quit the race. The remaining candidates are Hazon Ovadia yeshiva Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef, son […]
Tonight we may no who the two chief rabbis are, and it might very well be the last time there are two instead of one.
Says promised referendum is a deception.
Watch for free the best theatre in the world. After the Knesset passed a bill on first reading to require all Jews to service in the IDF, Haredi MKs tore their shirts in mourning. Act Two to follow.
Rav Ovadia Yosef, the same rabbi who last month call national religious Rabbi Stav “evil,” now says he really loves knitted kippa Jews. Well, most of them. Their political leaders still are Amalek. Happy Tu B'Av.
By JTA
For American athletes, the Maccabiah sports even proves the games are about more than sports. Several of the American Jewish athletes were inspired to become Bar Mitzvah.
JERUSALEM – As tens of thousands of Jews jammed Jerusalem’s Western Wall Plaza on Tisha B’Av to mourn the destruction of the First and Second Temples, leading rabbinical and political figures from Israel’s national religious and haredi streams found themselves embroiled in a war of words over a number of issues that in some instances spurred violent street clashes.
Jerusalem police allow Arabs to keep Jews from entering the Temple Mount, just like they used to allow Haredim to keep women away from the Kotel – until it was not politically correct.
The Knesset has driven the last nail in the once holy coffin of changing the clocks twice a year according to the timing of Passover and Yom Kippur. Daylight Time will remain until the end of October.
In 1979, Peace Now co-founder Omri Padan protested the government's letting Gush Emunim to establish a settlement. Now, as McDonalds’ CEO in Israel, he refuses to allow a branch over the “Green Line.”
Here’s good reason for Israel’s saying that UNESCO has been hijacked by the PA agenda. ”Israel planning to raze Al-Aqsa to build ‘second temple,” Screams Saudi Gazette headline. PS: They can’t count.
Small shop owners in cities outside of Tel Aviv may follow the example of Tel Aviv and campaign for their cities to uphold any laws that prohibit stores from opening on Shabbat. The Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that Tel Aviv has been mocking the law by simply imposing fines on stores that are open […]
July 24, 2026 
