יום רביעי, כ״ט אב תשפ״וWednesday, August 12, 2026
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Shabbat has kept the Jews throughout the generations.
By David Wilder, Tazpit News Agency
Toward early mid-afternoon the tents start popping up on the lawn in the park across from the Cave of Machpela.
At least 20,000 Jews from all across Israel, and some coming in from around the world, converged on the biblical city of Hebron this shabbat to honor the memory of the Matriarch Sarah, whose burial in the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron - Maarat HaMachpela - was chronicled in this week's Torah portion.
A campaign by a group of 12 French imams to portray themselves as friendly to Jews is set to take place on Sunday when they arrive in Israel for a five-day visit.
Some of the supervised, ‘bug-free,’ leafy vegetable growers are using higher levels of pesticides than allowed by Health Ministry standards.
A new exhibit at the Library of Congress is celebrating 100 years of Hebraica with its new exhibit, “Words Like Sapphires”.
Memorials for two memorable Jews took place this weekend, though they stood, perhaps, on opposite sides of the political spectrum.
An Israeli flag was burned in front of a Budapest synagogue on Tuesday by members of an ultrarightist Hungarian party as part of their celebrations of an anti-communist revolution taking part in the country in 1956.
When you talk to the man behind that organization, you discover that not only is he not lonely, he is not a particularly partisan individual.
By JTA
Malmo Mayor Ilmar Reepalu was among some 300 marchers who demonstrated in the Swedish city in support of the Jewish community.
Tests conducted on olive trees on Jerusalem's historic Mount of Olives are the oldest known trees in the world, according to a study released on Friday conducted by the National Research Council of Italy Trees and Timber Institute.
By Abraham Cooper and Yitzchok Adlerstein
Sometimes, only a period of separation will save a troubled marriage. That is why the Simon Wiesenthal Center and other Jewish groups are pulling out of the Christian-Jewish Roundtable. Fifteen liberal Protestant leaders, including those of the Presbyterian, Lutheran and Methodist denominations, chose the Jewish High Holiday season to urge Congress to curtail U.S. aid to Israel.
By JTA
European Jewish Congress President Moshe Kantor unveiled a model bill designed to set “strict legal terms” on religious freedoms for the continent.
By Tibbi Singer
She caught him "red-handed," and immediately filed a divorce case with the chief rabbinate, except he is refusing to divorce her.
Deborah Pinto, wife of Rabbi Yoshiyahu Pinto, who is suspected, along with her husband, of trying to bribe a senior police officer, attempted suicide on Sunday by taking pills. Mrs. Pinto, who was picked up for questioning last Thursday, together with her husband, and was released with him under restrictive conditions, is in satisfactory condition at the Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer.
In a Halachic Q&A, Rabbi Efrati of Efrat determined that the designation of "brother" to a goy is incorrect.
Users of a Shariah-compliant credit card from the United Arab Emirates can charge their purchases according to Islamic law, direct their prayers toward Mecca, and even put a little aside for the Hajj.
A coalition of religious groups is calling on the Washington DC Metro to donate proceeds from an ad campaign suggesting Muslims are savages to an organization supporting human rights.
Police in Israel have reportedly arrested a rabbi suspected of stealing seven Torah scrolls from the synagogue of Moshav Brosh near Be’er Sheva.
By JTA
He smuggled goods to Syria in the midst of its civil war and to Iran in the face of international sanctions, but Rabbi A.H. is no arms dealer or James Bond. He’s just a guy selling lulavs.
By JTA
Police in Budapest have arrested two young men after they allegedly assaulted the leader of a Jewish congregation.
By JTA
The Dutch government is drafting a decree that would give it veto power over anyone who wants to practice ritual slaughter, or sh'chitah, in the Netherlands.
By Anav Silverman, Tazpit News Agency
There was love in the air of Jerusalem on Thursday afternoon.
Tens of thousands of Christians from 60 countries around the world are participating in Thursday’s “Feast of the Tabernacles” march around Jerusalem.
Mordechai Ben David, Chaim Yisrael, Udi Davidi and Shlomo Katz performed to a packed audience on Wednesday in the Jewish biblical city of Hebron, burial ground of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, matriarchs Sarah, Rebecca, and Leah, and Jewish ancestors and notables Jesse, Ruth, and Avner.
A group of 30 Jews who regularly ascend to the Temple Mount after conducting ritual preparations in order to pray and assert a Jewish presence at Judaism’s holiest site were attacked in the morning on Thursday by a group of Arabs shouting out to “Kill the Jews!”
This Sukkot, the residents of the city of Kfar Saba are not only communing with nature by sitting in the biblically-assigned booths present throughout the rest of Israel, but by doing so in a green-friendly way.
In a show of solidarity with movements seeking to preserve respect for Islam, a Moscow ruled on Monday that the anti-Islam film “Innocence of Muslims” may not be shown in all of Russia.
Ritual circumcisions have resumed in the Cologne region of Germany, ending a controversy started in a Cologne court in June, when judges decided ritual circumcision constituted “bodily harm” to boys and religious coercion.
The Toldot Aharon hasidic group says it will not enforce gender segregation in the streets of the Jerusalem religious neighborhood of Mea Shearim over the Sukkot holiday.
By JTA
A Quaker group has removed a French and an American company from its financial portfolio due to what it calls the companies’ involvement with Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land.
A spokesman for German Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said his office is working on an outline for new legislation that will permit circumcision of minor males after a controversial court decision in the summer that criminalized the rite.
The Jewish cemetery south of Prague has been vandalized, with over 26 tombstones being knocked over, according to Czech police.
An estimated 85,000 people are expected to arrive at the Kotel plaza on Monday night for the final recitation of the Selichot prayers prior to Yom Kippur, the holiday of atonement.
An Iranian cleric who warned a woman to conform to standards of modesty and cover her eyes was subsequently beaten so badly by the offending female that he spent three days in the hospital.
The recurring uproar over the facts surrounding the life of Jesus now surrounds the discovery of an ancient papyrus bearing the words “Jesus said to them, my wife”.
At sundown this Sunday, the Jewish community here in the United States and all over the world will celebrate the start of the new year. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur mark a time of prayer and self-reflection, and offers Americans of all faiths an opportunity to focus on what unites us instead of what divides us, to work together to make this a more perfect union and to continue the work of repairing the world.
Approximately 300 protesters across the religious spectrum demonstrated in eastern Berlin in favor of religious freedom and the decriminalization of circumcision in Germany.
By JTA
The first Jewish Israeli male couple to marry has filed for divorce in a Tel Aviv rabbinical court that never recognized the marriage. It is unknown if the rabbinical court will provide a divorce for Uzi Even, the first openly gay Knesset member, and Dr. Amit Kama, Ynet reported.
3.5% of the young people interviewed attempted suicide.
The Western Wall checked out fine in a test of its stability by engineers.
By Tibbi Singer
Israel's Supreme Court on Monday ordered the Minister of Religious Affairs Yaakov Margi and the Chief Rabbinate Council to explain why they not allow single women to immerse in state-run mikvahs.
"The blood of the Oslo murdered is a thousand times more dear to me than the tears dropped for the one who killed them, with help from the Arabs."
By Tibbi Singer
“Rav Ovadia Yosef is not what the newspapers make him out to be. Rav Ovadia uses his influence on the Israeli public and also on the Israeli government,” Rabbi Fruman told the Palestinian officials. Abbas addressed the Iranian threat against Israel, and, surprisingly, expressed his objection to permitting Iran to possess a nuclear bomb, thus dragging the entire region into great danger.
“We are concerned that Interior Minister Yishai didn’t think of becoming better informed about the details."
Rav Ovadia Yosef said on Saturday night that we should focus specifically on Iran, and say, "May the good Lord obliterate them, destroy them…"
Rabbi Meir Lau, Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv and Holocaust Survivor, attacked the Germans today with harsh words. Rabbi Lau said, "We don't need their permission to live as Jews," and added that, "I didn't see such German sensitivity to Jewish blood in the Shoah."
"Kosher Near Me" is a smartphone software application ("app") that will allow you to find kosher food pretty much wherever you are.
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. Chief prosecutor Gerhard Schmitt confirmed that the complaint was filed by a doctor from Hessen, which is under the jurisdiction of the Cologne Regional Court, which decided a while ago that […]
By Tibbi Singer
We have grown accustomed to these letters being directed at Haredi women. Now, surprisingly, this letter is addressed specifically to the men.
The battle is being waged on the internet and phone lines, in the lead-up to a Sacramento City Council meeting on the topic which will take place on August 14.
By JTA
Norway’s ombudsman for children's rights has proposed that Jews and Muslim replace male circumcision with a symbolic, non-surgical ritual.
Senior Jerusalem rabbis permitted a late-night removal of the body of a Haredi rabbi from its grave, on the night between Thursday and Friday last week, because family members, who are Breslov Hasidim, claimed the "spiritual level" of the nearby dead was insufficient, causing what could be considered the desecration of the dead.
The Decision comes after the girl's mother applied for a court order in November 2011 to prevent her ex-husband from having the girl baptized.
On August 1, the biggest Jewish American event ever took place – the completion of the daily learning of the entire Gemara, which happens once every 7 and a half years, known as Siyum HaShas – filling of 90,000 seats at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium. However, a significantly smaller, but just as intriguing group celebrated the event in skirts, scarves and a spirit of sisterhood in Jerusalem.
By Anav Silverman, Tazpit News Agency
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.
A renewed outcry for “Temple consciousness” has arisen with a flurry of political, religious, and social activity.
Special measures taken to allow for the passage of large numbers of worshipers through crossings in the Jerusalem and Bethlehem areas on the first Friday of Ramadan
A ban by some Orthodox Brooklyn shopkeepers on customers’ cleavage and bare shoulders has raised the ire of some local consumers.
Ramadan began on Friday as 100,000 Muslims pray on the Temple Mount.
The wall will be fronted with 60 white cross "that symbolize the 60 million little baby boys and girls have been murdered since 1973 in America alone."
There is great concern in Haredi circles following a severe deterioration in the condittion of Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, who has been hospitalized for the past six months in Shaarey Tzedek Hospital in Jerusalem.
The Jewish Hospital in Berlin has suspended all religious circumcisions of children following a ruling delivered by a German court banning the practice.
By dvora
JERUSALEM – A leading Orthodox rabbi in Israel has a revolutionary proposal for the harvesting of organs from a clinically dead patient. At present, his proposal not only has no support from other rabbis, it is also against Israeli law – but he is not fazed.
The Plesner Committee, tasked with crafting an alternative to the Tal Law for haredi service in Israel, is reportedly drafting a proposal which would defer the enlistment of haredi men till age 22, offer financial incentives to yeshivot that have younger enlistment rates, and begin to levy economic sanctions on haredim who don't enlist by age 23.
A Cologne district court ruled on Tuesday that parents may not have their sons circumcised for religious reasons, essentially criminalizing religious circumcisions.
The Lakewood, NJ, Bnos Yaakov elementary school is not happy over the fact that an internal letter to its students has been published online. It contains a story with a disturbing notion of purgatory for girls who don't obey the laws of tzniyut (modesty).
By Jewish Press Staff Reporter
The Israeli government announced on Tuesday that, for the first time, it will pay the salaries of a small number of Reform and Conservative rabbis who are considered leaders in their communities, and will also recognize them as rabbis.
Saudi Muslims have launched several campaigns against McDonald's in "response to the savage attacks on the noble Prophet," under banners like "Help your Prophet!" and "Together in support of the Prophet."
More than 50,000 ultra-Orthodox Jewish men packed Citi Field in Flushing, Queens, on Sunday, for the Asifa, a gathering decrying the dangers of the Internet. Organizers have also rented the nearby Arthur Ashe Stadium for the overflow crowd. Event spokesman Eytan Kobre said the group wants to teach families how to use technology responsibly.
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.
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 […]
‘Global Winds of Change’ Conference addresses role of religion in democracies and changing societies.
By Tibbi Singer
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.
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.
By Tibbi Singer
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.
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.
By Tibbi Singer
"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.
August 7, 2026 
