יום רביעי, א׳ אב תשפ״וWednesday, July 15, 2026
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The Vizhnitzer Rebbe of Bnei Brak, Rabbi Moshe Yehoshua Hager, passed away late Tuesday night. He was 95.
Democrat Lew Fidler and Republican David Storobin recently took part in the one and only debate between them.
Anti-Semitic slogans scrawled in Calgary and an Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents conducted by B’nai Brith Canada showing a steady rise in anti-Jewish incidents has prompted a former Israeli counter-terrorism expert to establish a Jewish guard troop for relevant sites throughout Canada.
Two boys from the Arab village of Beit Zarzir were arrested and admitted that they had been the ones who sprayed swastikas and "Death to Arabs" on the walls of their school. They also said they broke the school warehouse and smashed windows. The two were released after interrogation house arrest. The school, which caters […]
Israeli intelligence authorities need to assess the threats coming from Iran. This is not a public relations issue. Obama and the other world leaders can support or oppose our actions, but Israel will have to do what is best for the future and well-being of the Jewish State. No one else will do the heavy lifting for us. While we cannot diminish the possibility that Iran actually has the technology and the motivation to strike Israel, we also cannot afford to overlook other real and obvious threats to Israel.
NY1 News reports that Councilman David G. Greenfield (D-Brooklyn) is about to denounce the creation of the so-called Super Jewish state Senate seat, merging portions of six senate districts into one. Greenfield will argue that the Senate district lines as currently proposed will dilute the voice and power of Borough Park and Midwood. Greenfield will […]
By Dov Gilor
We left Santa Fe on our way to visit the Painted Forest and the Petrified Forest in Arizona. Part of our day was spent traveling on the historic Route 66 and we stopped at the state visitor's center as we entered Arizona. At each state visitor’s center, we stopped to gather information about interesting sites and to request coupon booklets with reduced entry coupons.
We can be justly proud of all the media coverage revolving around a group of Orthodox Jewish students at Houston’s Beren Academy who had decided not to participate in a prestigious basketball competition if it conflicted with the requirements of their faith.
By Jacob Kamaras and Maxine Dovere
After the recent attacks on Israeli embassies in India and Georgia, Jewish institutions in the U.S. are asking a question that is much closer to home: Does Iran pose a local terror threat?
Purim is the holiday of contradictions and tenacity-driven-optimism: Grief replaced by joy; Esther's concealment replaced by the disclosure of her national/religious identity; Haman's intended genocide of the Jews replaced by redemption; Haman replaced by Mordechai; national and personal pessimism replaced by optimism.
The Orlando Sentinel reported that thirteen Jewish graves were desecrated over the weekend at the Florida National Cemetery in Bushnell. Only Jewish tombstones knocked over or uprooted, while other graves were left untouched. Sumter County Sheriff''s Office is investigating the vandalism as a hate crime. "Every headstone that was targeted had a Star of David […]
Last week, two shameful events occurred on University of California campuses that made Jewish students feel targeted, intimidated, harassed, and unsafe. We charge the UC administration with failing in their basic responsibilities - to protect Jewish students from a hostile environment and to ensure their rights to freedom of speech.
By JTA
WASHINGTON (JTA) -- The Florida House of Representatives passed legislation opposed by Jewish and Muslim groups that would ban the application of religious or foreign law in marriage, divorce or custody cases. The bill is one of a number around the country that has sought to limit the influence of Sharia, or Islamic law. The bill, […]
A transcript of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech before the AIPAC Policy Conference Monday.
The Bangor Daily News reports that the Maine Human Rights Commission found Monday that a Lewiston, Maine, man was harassed out of his home by another tenant last spring because he is Jewish. Bruce Brown of Lewiston said a tenant in the apartment building he lived in drove him out of his home by painting […]
The dedication of a new Torah scroll is always a cause for celebration. But for the small yet proud Jewish community in South Korea, just such a dedication Sunday meant so much more. Not only did it cap the community’s recent unprecedented growth, it welcomed what for Jews elsewhere in the world is almost a […]
Perhaps you can’t really define a people without also defining its enemies. Certainly many believe that if the Jews could get rid of the idea of peoplehood, then they wouldn’t have enemies.The experience of the 19th century assimilationists and post-Oslo Israel tells us that this strategy doesn’t work in the real world. Even if we refuse to remember Amalek, he remembers us. And if we don’t have the support of self-conscious peoplehood (and its concrete representation, the Jewish state), how can we fight him?
By Tibbi Singer
Beginning Friday night, March 2, hundreds of communities across the continent will take part in an historic national Jewish event to celebrate what unifies all Jews — Shabbat. More than 500 colleges and synagogues will take part in the medley of traditions across the United States and Canada, with 40,000-50,000 Jews expected to participate.
By dvora
More Commentary On Bais Yaakov’s High School Education
Jonathan, who once wondered how he would ever get his son close to Hashem, now knows he wasn’t the only one who wanted it. Hashem had an interest in it as well, and made it all come together.
These are excerpts from the sefer “Inside Purim” which contains additional answers to the following questions and much more.
Purim is just a few days away, and Jews young and old are gearing up to celebrate this most festive of holidays, during which all will eat, drink and nosh merrily and in great relief over our come-up-from-behind triumph against a vicious Jew hater whose goal was to annihilate the Jewish people, but who instead had the tables turned against him in a dramatic and unforeseen manner. Sadly, bullying is alive and well in the 21st century afflicting all societies and the individuals that comprise them. For those who think that our heimishe communities have been spared the scourge of bullying - it's time to get their head out of the cholent.
The Jewish Museum’s “Radical Camera” is a thrilling, beautiful exhibition that documents the development of socially conscious photography, primarily in New York City. It was a time of great challenges and great change, uptown, downtown and all around. These intensely creative, sensitive and insightful photographers all had a hand in capturing a time when New York and its people were entering the turbulent heart of the 20th century. Isn’t it interesting that the vast majority of them happened to be Jews?
By Elke Weiss
Purim is my favorite holiday, and I love to share the joy. I have spent previous years wandering around my neighborhood in costume. This year, I fully intend to celebrate with full cheer, and I want everyone to know why I plan to spend the day in costume, singing Shoshanat Yaakov at the top of my lungs.
Almost 450 years ago, in the year 1569, a new Sultan came to power in Damascus. Upon assuming his throne, one of his first acts was to order the destruction of all the Jewish synagogues in the city. The Jews had begun to fear for their lives when on the eve of Purim, a miracle occurred. From a vicious Jew-hater, the Sultan became their friend and during his reign the Jews lived in peace.
Ariel said five Israeli Prime Ministers have tried to pursue a land for peace approach, and each have failed. He declared that it was time to present the alternative to the two-state solution - annexing 100% of Judea and Samaria.
Many of the most fascinating posts I come across are based on sources in Hebrew. These stories would fascinate you, yet I simply do not have the time to translate them all for you...
By Moshe Herman
Yishai and Malkah talk about their excitement for snow in Israel, an Arab rock-throwing attack against American Legislators, an ancient Judean palm tree grows today, the expiration of a law allowing ultra-Orthodox Jews to avoid military service, and Yishai’s Tu B’Shevat Seder in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York.
By Tibbi Singer
Once we recognize that the enemy is not acting against us based on rational reasons, but out of a pathological hatred, it is our duty to act on our conclusion and strike at the enemy, disregarding world opinion.
By dvora
Rabbi Norman Lamm wrote and preserved the hundreds of eloquent and inspiring sermons he had delivered as a pulpit rabbi in Manhattan for 25 years prior to becoming president of Yeshiva University,
By Rafi Harkham
More than anything else, the likes of Arab MKs Hanin Zoabi and Ahmed Tibi frame the tension of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state in stark terms, and reveal what is in store for the country should it shift more towards modern liberal democracy and away from a state that reflects a Jewish character culturally and politically.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
There is a deeper message in Parshat Tetzaveh - the principle of the separation of powers, which opposes the concentration of leadership into one person or institution. All human authority needs checks and balances if it is not to become corrupt. In particular, political and religious leadership (keter malchut and keter kehunah) should never be combined. Moses wore the crowns of political and prophetic leadership, Aaron that of priesthood. The division allowed each to be a check on the other.
Dear Deborah, Your book, Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of my Hasidic Roots, has touched a lot of nerves and unsettled a lot of hearts in the Orthodox Jewish community. It is not every day that a Satmar woman divorces her husband, moves to Manhattan and writes a tell-all book about the experience. It is not every day that a Satmar woman writes about her chassidic experience with derision and her intimate relations without inhibition.
By Jason Maoz
Billy Graham had for decades been one of America’s most admired figures, a national icon, a man respected across the board for his seeming sincerity, rock-solid faith and openness to working with those whose beliefs differ from his own. He was also a staunch friend of Israel. But a different side of Graham emerged during the 90-minute White House meeting with Nixon. Graham was particularly exercised by what he saw as the “stranglehold” Jews maintained on the American media.
If you asked someone to outline the profile of a director making a film on The New York Times’s coverage of the Holocaust, “non-Jewish,” “college student,” and “South Carolina native” would probably not be the first descriptors he would use. Yet, they perfectly fit the profile of Emily Harrold, a 21-year-old senior who is currently completing “Reporting on the Times,” a film inspired by Laurel Leff’s 2005 book, Buried by the Times: The Holocaust and America’s Most Important Newspaper.
Recent comments by Media Matters' Senior Foreign Policy Fellow MJ Rosenberg are the most recent incarnation of the age-old accusation against Jews of disloyalty to their own country. It finds its roots in the Biblical villains Pharaoh and Hamen who accused the Jews of Egypt and Persia of disloyalty. It was a central tenet of Nazism, Stalinism and other anti-Semitic regimes. Today, it is the mantra of David Duke, Patrick Buchanan, Reverend Jeremiah Wright and Jew haters of every race, religion and national origin.
By Pnina Baim
There’s nothing like a holiday where one is required to be happy to bring out the grouch in all of us. But we should all be excited to greet Purim. Not only because of the beautiful miracle that occurred, the lessons of emunah and the role of the Jewish woman that Megillas Esther teaches us, but also because it’s the only twenty-four hour holiday that we celebrate here in Chutz L’Aretz, and it has merely four mitzvot! How simple is that?
Thanks to her efforts, domestic violence is now on the national Jewish agenda. But the Rebbetzin didn’t simply raise awareness; she opened safe houses across the country, trained volunteers to provide emotional, physical and financial support and always made herself available for comfort, advice, and direction.
Asperger’s Syndrome was first described in the 1940s by Austrian pediatrician Hans Asperger, who noticed that he had many patients who were deficient in social and communicative skills even though they had normal language development and cognitive abilities. Professionals still debate as to whether Asperger’s Syndrome is “high-functioning autism” or whether it is its own disorder completely. Regardless, in 1994, Asperger’s Syndrome was added to The American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) as a separate disorder from autism.
Malcolm Hoenlein: “While I choose not to reveal their names, they [Arab leaders] have all expressed serious concern about Iran and are interested in making peace with Israel. They are serious about what they say and proof of that has been seen in recent weeks, as you don’t hear many of these leaders raise the Palestinian issue against Israel in our discussions or in the headlines.”
Countries whose immediate danger from Iranian bombs is far less than Israel's are remarkably hypocritical and insulting when they warn Israel against a military strike. Telling Israel that it should not defend itself is like saying “just die, but don’t make a mess.” When have Jews heard this before? It’s become a cliché, but one that still resonates. The difference is that then they had no choice because they had no power to defend themselves. Today there is a Jewish state, which should not be expected to act as though it is as powerless as the European Jews of WWII. All this is part of the “Israel is expected to…” syndrome.
The stories in this column are translations by Mr. Nollet from Die Juden In Der Welt (The Jews in the World) by Mark Wischnitzer, a long out-of-print book published more than seven decades ago in Germany. The book examines Jewish communities, one country at a time, as they existed in 1935.
Question: Is there any halachic rationale for men to shake hands with women?
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
It is not what G-d does for us that transforms us, but rather what we do for G-d. A free society is best symbolized by the Tabernacle. It is the home we build together. It is only by becoming builders that we turn from subjects to citizens. We have to earn our freedom by what we give. It cannot be given to us as an unearned gift.
Batei arei chomah are structures (of at least six to eight square feet) in towns consisting of at least three courtyards with two buildings each, with a predominantly Jewish population – provided that such towns were surrounded by a wall in the time of Joshua even though they may no longer be surrounded by a wall at the time of the sale or buyback.
The entire Jewish nation – every man, woman, and child – experienced the revelation of Hashem on Har Sinai. They saw Hashem as clearly as humans can, and they attained a level of prophecy. Now they were being offered one of the greatest gifts imaginable: Hashem Himself was going to dwell among them.
“Rabbi, did you ever think you would see this day?” It was 1971, and the university official who asked this question was inviting the rabbi to the dedication of the kosher dining room in Stevenson Hall on the campus of Princeton University.
The Knesset conference on Compensation for Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries, hosted by MK Nissim Zeev (Shas), raised the profile of his cause and will lead to the creation of a Knesset caucus. Speaker Reuven Rivlin, Vice Prime Minister Benny Begin, Israeli MKs, foreign leaders, and diaspora groups of Arab-country origins filled the Knesset's Jerusalem […]
The New York Times’ newly-appointed Bureau Chief Jodi Rodoren came under fire this week from pro-Israel bloggers who noticed that she sent a friendly tweet to a very obnoxious anti-Israel propagandist based in Chicago. Rodoren, an American Jew, was asked by one blogger whether she was a Zionist. Her response was that the only "ist" she would call herself is “journalist.” Well, that is really what is expected of her.
By Rafi Harkham
Tel Aviv Chief Rabbi Lau responds with dismay to a resolution passed by the Tel Aviv-Jaffa City Council to operate public transportation on Shabbat. He appealed to Mayor Ron Huldai, who supported the resolution, not to "allow the candle of Shabbat to burn out."
Rocks and shoes were hurled from a mosque as police escorted a Jewish group that was visiting the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. One police officer was lightly injured, as was one of the visitors.
Shalom Toronto reports that Toronto police announced on Sunday the arrest of a suspect in the kidnapping and sexual assault of a minor near Bathurst and Wilson streets, where many of the residents are Jewish. The incident took place on December 28, 2011, at 3:30 in the morning. The baby's parents noticed that she wasn't […]
No one has a license to lie, manipulate or manufacture falsehoods. Make no mistake, the primary characteristics of Israel Apartheid Week programming are terrible, unjustified charges expressly aimed at demonizing Israel.
By Elke Weiss
We are forgetting the lessons of the churban Beit HaMikdash, how we were not finished off by Rome, but destroyed ourselves through mindless hatred and zealotry. We bled each other dry through violence and bigotry until we were weak enough for Rome to come in and step all over our broken bodies. Rome did not defeat us - we defeated ourselves.
By Erica Lyons
Our Jewish world is small but from his five-year-old perspective it is large, perhaps all-encompassing. The fact that in a population of over 7 million people in Hong Kong (95% of whom are ethnically Chinese) we as Jews collectively account for only about 4,000 or 0.05% of the population can be seemingly irrelevant. Large numbers and statistics don’t play into his worldview.
We live in a wonderful time for Jewish art. The orthodoxy of 20th century High Modernism has given way to a chaotic but liberated postmodernism willing to try anything, even serious “ethnic” art.
By Maury Litwak
One thing that I consistently encounter when discussing affordable Jewish education is frustration and blame. The frustration comes from parents and others intimately involved in Jewish education.
By Rafi Harkham
Coinciding with a scathing press release by the Zionist Organization of America, 30 senior activists from Temple Mount groups and organizations around Israel recently convened an unprecedented meeting and resolved to challenge the Israeli government's discriminatory treatment of Jews on the Temple Mount.
By dvora
In this highly politicized era, where every time Israel begins construction on any part of Jerusalem beyond the 1967 green line, it’s worth asking why the Jewish Quarter has been spared the same level of international criticism.
“And men of holiness you shall be to me, and you shall not eat meat in the field of a torn carcass (22:30). The expression “to Me” means “men of holiness that are Mine.” By being holy, they become close to Hashem.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
First in Parshat Yitro there were the Asseret Hadibrot (the Ten Utterances, or general principles). Now in Parshat Mishpatim come the details.
Question: Is there any halachic rationale for men to shake hands with women?
Recent polls show yet again that the vast majority of Israeli society is traditional, holds from its religious faith and shies away from coercion. Thus, hasn’t the time come for our national leadership to express the desires of the large Jewish majority?
Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis, founder and president of Hineni, the Jewish outreach organization, addressed an overflow crowd recently at Congregation Shaarei Tefila in Los Angeles.
In the initial year of the Yeshiva University (YU) Center for the Jewish Future’s Certificate Program in Experiential Jewish Education, the program’s second seminar, “Creating Experiences,” took place recently at the Camp Shalom institute in Malibu. The group’s participants consist of a cross-section of 20 practicing and emerging educators from across the Jewish denominations, working […]
Anyone interested in meticulously researched writings important to the future of Am Yisrael should add 190-page hardcover Torah Tapestries: Shemos to public and private libraries.
With the stroke of his pen, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas sealed the fate of the peace process, effectively declaring an end to any chance of reaching an agreement with the Jewish state.
There is constant talk of a tuition crisis, of the growing number of yeshiva and day school parents – and potential parents – who say that full tuition or anything close to it is beyond their financial reach.
Thirty sites, including Tel Arad, the Herodium, and Beit Ha'Aztmaut in Tel Aviv have been declared National Heritage Sites. So it turns out the Jewish people are not in occupiers in Judea and Samaria after all.
The secret posthumous baptism of key Jewish figures by the Mormon church has caused outrage in the Jewish community and led to an apology by Mormon leaders.
By Rafi Harkham
ZOA Director Jeff Daube: "Our co-religionists want to practice a simple act of faith at the ultimate Jewish holy site, they just want to pray quietly and respectfully, and we must advocate for them. For if not here, then where?”
Government should extend money to encourage aliyah – MK Danon.
Does Israel persecute religion? Satmar hasidim believe it does.
By Tibbi Singer
Warsaw is moving the discussion over the transfer of possession to original owners to the courts.
The American Jewish Orthodox community has probably been overwhelmed by the events of the past few weeks in Israel regarding the extremely hostile attacks that have been aimed at the haredi community by the secular press and politicians from across the political spectrum.
By Tibbi Singer
After a day with Lubavitch Hasidim, Oprah Winfrey says Jewish Life offers a wealth of lessons for the world.
By Tibbi Singer
President Sarkozy told an assembly of Jewish dignitaries that Israel and the victim's family must seek justice for the killers in French court.
Question: Should a person try to observe mitzvot he is technically exempt from performing?
After its conquest by Joshua, the land of Israel was divided into twelve equal parts in accordance with the number of the tribes of Israel. Each male member of each tribe that actually left Egypt was entitled to a piece of land equal in size to the total size allocated to his whole tribe divided by the number of men of twenty or over in his tribe that left Egypt.
Several weeks ago, in response to a letter from by a young woman in her thirties who wrote of the painful plight of singles, I wrote a column that has since mushroomed into a series of articles.
By dvora
Recently, I discovered a frum website, www.jewish-e-books.com, that allows one to download hundreds of Jewish books – both in English and Hebrew. Having written a sefer myself, I was able to get it put on their website.
The most dreaded status in Israeli society is to be considered a frier – a sucker, a boob, stupid and unable to withstand being taken advantage of.
An index of the Talmud with more than 6,000 topical and 27,000 subtopical entries is a major undertaking and its publication a seminal event in Jewish scholarship.
NGO Monitor President calls on New Israel Fund to immediately and publicly condemn and disassociate from NIF grantee Adalah.
JERUSALEM – Thousands gathered at Shaare Tzedek Medical Center, the Kotel and yeshivot across Israel Tuesday praying for Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv – Yosef Shalom ben Chaya Mousha – the 101-year-old leading contemporary authority on Jewish law who was in a medically induced coma after suffering kidney and lung failure.
Near the end of the nineteenth century, Theodor Herzl, the Viennese journalist who would wrestle with the plight of Jews amid the enticements and dangers of modernity, felt trapped. For his son’s sake he considered conversion to Christianity; to solve the vexing “Jewish Question” he even fantasized the mass conversion of Jews.
By Ron Kampeas
WASHINGTON – When America’s top intelligence official said that Iran’s regime is considering attacks on U.S. soil, he cited a single incident and qualified the assessment with a “probably.”
Boteach declared his intent to run for Congress as a Republican in New Jersey's 9th District.
“Oh. I was just thinking about you. How was your day?” Ruti’s mother asked her the minute she walked through the door. “Fine, Mommy.”
A few weeks ago in these pages you were introduced to Menifa - Leverage for Life, a nonprofit organization based in Israel that works with youth at risk who have dropped out of high school.
Education Minister: "Being Zionist is now an accusation."
News of an increased threat on Jewish and Israeli targets across North America comes at the same time as predictions of an imminent and detailed Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities arise.
The new immigrants were taken to an absorption center in Kiryat Gat, where they will live while integrating into the Jewish state.
A person’s reputation precedes him. A bad reputation prejudices any chance of a successful encounter. Damaging a person’s reputation is tantamount to booby-trapping human relations before they can blossom into happy relationships.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
In September 2010, BBC, Reuters and other news agencies reported on a sensational scientific discovery. Researchers at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research and the University of Colorado showed through computer simulation how the division of the Red Sea might have taken place.
If the recent pictures of destroyed outposts had been of Bedouin villages or illegal houses in the Galilee, the whole country would have been up in arms.
After months of witnessing the hand of Hashem, the entire Jewish nation – three million strong – marched out from slavery to freedom with flourish and fanfare.
We have myriad matchmaking programs all over the world, from word of mouth to computerized, from well-intentioned individuals and professional shadchanim to singles organizations.
Conventional wisdom states that the January 14th mosque fire in Tuba-Zangariya was perpetrated by vindictive Jewish vandals, but upon closer inspection, such a claim seems dubious at best.
My friend Mrs. Rosen (not her real name) asked me to share her story. A widow for several years, she recently moved back to the community where she grew up so that she could help her elderly parents.
July 10, 2026 
