יום חמישי, י׳ תמוז תשפ״וThursday, June 25, 2026
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By Ben Shapiro
The fate of our children’s children rests with us – with whether we surrender the legacy of our forefathers for a little temporary convenience, or whether we stand proud and strong in the face of the storms to come.
By Jewish News Syndicate (JNS)
Joining in the announcement were various faith leaders, including those from the Orthodox Union, one of the groups calling for the increase.
By Jewish News Syndicate (JNS)
Communal leaders Avi and Becky Katz have established a multi-year, multi-million national initiative with NCSY, the flagship youth movement of the Orthodox Union.
By Jewish News Syndicate (JNS)
“Our hope is that this repository of ideas can serve as a launching pad for others,” said Rabbi Adir Posy.
By Jewish News Syndicate (JNS)
The country is facing a skyrocketing number of infections and an overstretched medical system.
By Jewish News Syndicate (JNS)
“The synagogue is the halachic and historic hub of Jewish life, and this program is designed to highlight that,” said OU executive vice president Rabbi Moshe Hauer.
By Jewish News Syndicate (JNS)
“With recent developments, we expect that demand for kosher food in the UAE and region will grow quickly,” says Emirates Flight Catering CEO Saeed Mohammed.
By Josh Hasten
Rabbi Yissachar Krakowski and team prepared 300 kosher meals over the course of the two-day event in the United Arab Emirates.
Orthodox Union (OU) Kosher, the world’s largest kosher certification agency, has launched a free online kosher food and travel guide to help Jews follow dietary and ritual observance while away from home.
By Jewish News Syndicate (JNS)
Programming includes 14 Shabbatonim, in addition to cooking classes, bowling outings, family support groups and sensitivity training.
They discussed the need to increase and expand initiatives focused on Jewish education and identity in the Diaspora.
By Sandy Eller
The New York State Education Department issued clarifications to the lengthy, and sometimes, vague educational guidelines it had released on November 20.
By Marc Gottlieb / CulinartKosher.com
Marc Gottlieb received a detailed response as to which Bimbo Bakery products will be losing their Kashrut certification and which ones will keep them...
By Jewish News Syndicate (JNS)
Consumers may have thought these were isolated business decisions or cost-cutting measures, but that’s not the case.
By JNi.Media
Jewish day school and Yeshiva enrollment in New York City has become almost as large as the entire New York City based charter school population.
No organization (i.e.the OU) can excommunicate anyone. It does not, however, mean that our communities lack organizing principles. Those principles operate based on individual choice. People effectively expel synagogues not compliant with mainstream halacha.
By Jewish News Syndicate (JNS)
The OU has established parameters for a three-year period during which the umbrella body for American Orthodox congregations will work to bring its member synagogues who employ female clergy into compliance with OU standards, which stipulate that a woman cannot serve as a rabbi.
Let's say the OU were to expel a synagogue, or 4, what practical difference would it make?
By JNi.Media
The OU is planning an ad campaign condemning the mayor's failure to meet the nutritional needs of city children.
By JNi.Media
In late August, four coalitions of Jewish clergy issued statements they planned to boycott the president's call, in response to Trump’s weak response to the neo-Nazi and white supremacist riots in Charlottesville, Va.
By JNi.Media
After an initial briefing with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and with the Orthodox Union which is coordinating the volunteers within the Jewish community in Houston, the ZAKA team set out to work.
By JNi.Media
In parts of the Houston area, the slow-moving tropical storm Harvey has set a record for rainfall from a single storm anywhere in the continental United States, with 51.88 inches since the storm began. According to the Harris County Flood Control District, as much as 30% of Harris County’s 1,800 square miles of land is flooded.
By JNi.Media
"As the extent of the damage becomes clear, it is obvious that this community will need significant financial help in order to rebuild."
A delicious summer recipe for our readers.
Just pop Mom’s Chicken in the oven and in just minutes, you’ll be able to serve your family a delicious meal.
How do we expand leadership roles and titles that the OU and its Rabbinical Panel recommend while developing and continuing a halakhic conversation about the exact parameters of those roles and titles?
The House Foreign Affairs Committee unanimously approved a resolution condemning the PA's anti-Israel incitement.
The Palestinian Authority thinks, or makes believe, that the white "kittel" worn on Yom Kippur is a "priestly garment."
Rabbis will appeal to Congressmen, especially the Jews, immediately before the Rosh HaShanah New Year.
The OU respects the process which led to the Obergefell decision, but prays religious liberty won't be sacrificed.
By Kosher Today
His mission was to have vodka produces from the seven species of the land of Israel - figs, dates, pomegranate, wheat, barley, olive and grapes.
By Jewish News Syndicate (JNS)
The Orthodox Union, B'nai Brith and the Houston Federation are pitching in.
By JTA
Today’s hijab ban could be tomorrow’s kippa ban.
The OU criticized White House and State Dept. Spokespeople for suggesting Jews buying houses in Jerusalem is 'provocative.'
The news that the Chief Rabbinate withdrew kosher supervisors from Turkish plants in the face of Israel’s war in Gaza is part of what some kashrus organizations call “working in a more dangerous world.” They recall the murder of two kosher supervisors in Mumbai in December 2008, and extremists have recently threatened more terror in […]
Before, we were unified in prayer and hope for the boys’ safe return. Now, tragically, we are unified in grief.
By JTA
Jewish groups across the religious spectrum praised Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidelines on accommodating religious attire in the workplace. The guidelines published Thursday are for “employers with at least 15 employees (including private sector, state, and local government employers), as well as employment agencies, unions, and federal government agencies.” These employers “must make exceptions to […]
By JTA
Congress budgeted $13 million for a nonprofit security assistance program that mostly aids Jewish institutions. The money was allocated in the $1.1 trillion budget passed this week by both houses of Congress. The program, which has existed since the mid-2000s, has so far disbursed $138 million through the Department of Homeland Security, not counting the […]
Now quinoa is OK for Pesach says the OU.
By Kosher Today
Snack food manufacturers are increasingly turning to the Orthodox Union for kosher certification to expand their markets during the Passover holiday. Classic Foods announced last week that the company and its branded snack products will be kosher for Passover, under the certification of the OU, which will put Kettle Classics, California Classics, and Baked Classics […]
By JTA
An array of liberal Jewish groups lauded the U.S. Senate for passing a bill that would extend federal anti-discrimination protections to gays. “Today’s bipartisan Senate passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act is an overdue and historic accomplishment in our nation’s effort to end workplace discrimination for the LGBT community,” Reform clergyman David Saperstein, the director […]
By JTA
Approximately 90 percent of the $10 million in funding for non-profit organizations announced by the Department of Homeland Security to help nonprofit organizations protect themselves from terrorism went to Jewish institutions this year. The total amount of grants, announced Aug. 29, is slightly up from last year’s $9.7 million, while the total Preparedness Grant Program […]
Secretary of State John Kerry met with what the Jewish Telegraph Agency described as "Jewish leaders" to "brief" them on the resumption of Israeli-Arab Palestinian talks on Thursday evening, August 8. Although the briefing was off the record, the JTA quoted unnamed attendants who said several things. First, that the meeting was dominated by Kerry's […]
By Guest Author
Private Jewish day schools and yeshivas get hundreds of millions of dollars through tax credit programs.
Israeli restaurants and hotels are more interested n seeking kosher certification from the American-based Orthodox Union (OU) in order to attract foreign tourists, according to the Kosher Today newsletter. It said that many American Jewish tourists generally are more familiar with the OU than Israeli rabbinic certifications. The OU operates in Israel in an office […]
By JTA
The U.S. Department of Education outlined new efforts to bring non-profit schools into federally funded programs, an initiative that had been sought by Orthodox Jewish groups, among others. State and local educational agencies "must ensure the equitable participation of eligible private school students and, as applicable, their teachers and parents" in such programs, the department's […]
The law will correct a defect in the current FEMA legislation by making clear that houses of worship are to be included amongst the nonprofit recipients of federal disaster relief aid
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
The call to Abraham, with which Parshat Lech Lecha begins, seems to come from nowhere: “Leave your land, your birthplace, and your father’s house, and go to a land that I will show you.”
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Is there such a thing as an objective basis of morality? For some time, in secular circles, the idea has seemed absurd. Morality is what we choose it to be. We are free to do what we like so long as we don’t harm others. Moral judgments are not truths but choices. There is no way of getting from “is” to “ought,” from description to prescription, from facts to values, from science to ethics. This was the received wisdom in philosophy for a century after Nietzsche had argued for the abandonment of morality – which he saw as the product of Judaism – in favor of the “will to power.”
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Yom Kipper, the Day of Atonement, is the supreme moment of Jewish time, a day of fasting and prayer, introspection and self-judgment. At no other time are we so sharply conscious of standing before God, of being known by Him. But it begins in the strangest of ways.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, is a kind of clarion call, a summons to the Ten Days of Penitence that culminate in the Day of Atonement. The Torah calls it “the day when the horn is sounded,” and its central event is the sounding of the shofar.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Near the end of Parshas Va’etchanan, so inconspicuously that we can sometimes miss it, is a statement with such far-reaching implications that it challenges the impression that has prevailed thus far in the Torah, giving an entirely new complexion to the biblical image of the people Israel:
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
During The Three Weeks between 17 Tammuz and Tisha B’Av, as we recall the destruction of the Temples, we read three of the most searing passages in the prophetic literature, the first two from the opening of the book of Jeremiah, the third, next week, from the first chapter of Isaiah.
Mr. Stein (not his real name) saw his career hit a dead end three years ago when the market went sour. As a commercial real estate broker, he and his wife, Devora, then a student studying toward her degree in social work, knew something had to change quickly if they were to survive financially. Friends and family members had suggested they open their own business, but the Steins had no money to invest in the project. They had no credit and the money they borrowed from relatives went directly to day-to-day living. That’s when they contacted the Emergency Parnossa Initiative (EPI) and the OU Job Board and began the process of transforming their lives.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
There was an ongoing debate between the Sages as to whether the nazirite – whose laws are outlined in this week’s parshah – was to be praised. Recall that the nazirite was someone who voluntarily, usually for a specified period, undertook a special form of holiness. This meant that he was forbidden to consume wine or any grape products, to have a haircut, and to defile himself by contact with the dead.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
It was the Septuagint, the early Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, that translated tzara’at, the condition whose identification and cleansing occupies much of Parshiyot Tazria and Metzora as lepra, giving rise to a long tradition identifying it with leprosy.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Why was spontaneity wrong for Nadav and Avihu, yet right for Moshe Rabbeinu? The answer is that Nadav and Avihu were kohanim, priests. Moses was a navi, a prophet. These are two different forms of religious leadership. They involve different tasks and different sensibilities, indeed different approaches to time itself.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
In her book The Watchman’s Rattle, subtitled Thinking Our Way Out of Extinction, Rebecca Costa delivers a fascinating account of how civilizations die. Their problems become too complex. Societies reach what she calls a cognitive threshold. They simply can’t chart a path from the present to the future.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
We think of a sin as something we did intentionally, yielding to temptation perhaps, or in a moment of rebellion. That is what Jewish law calls b’zadon in biblical Hebrew or b’mezid in rabbinic Hebrew. That is the kind of act we would have thought calls for a sin offering. But actually such an act cannot be atoned for by an offering at all. So how do we make sense of the sin offering?
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
The name Bezalel was adopted by the artist Boris Schatz for the School of Arts and Crafts he founded in Israel in 1906, and Rav Kook wrote a touching letter in support of its creation. He saw the renaissance of art in the Holy Land as a symbol of the regeneration of the Jewish people in its own land, landscape and birthplace. Judaism in the Diaspora, removed from a natural connection with its own historic environment, was inevitably cerebral and spiritual, “alienated.”
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.
There certainly are many reasons to look forward to Purim. It is a time of feasting, joy, and merriment. We celebrate an important victory over our enemies, which was a precedent for many other such victories over the course of our history. We read one of the most moving stories in our entire tradition, and we have good fun while we’re doing it.
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.
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.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
There is a fascinating moment in the unfolding story of the plagues that should make us stop and take notice. Seven plagues have now struck Egypt.
By Maury Litwak
There are two types of politicians we encounter when advocating to relieve our community’s tuition burden through the use of government funding: those who claim to be 100 percent behind us, and those who claim to be 100 percent against us. What’s interesting is that politicians in both categories do not seem to understand what “100 percent” means.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
The parshah of Va’eira begins with some fateful words. It would not be too much to say that they changed the course of history because they changed the way people thought about history. In fact, they gave birth to the very idea of history. Listen to the words:
June 19, 2026 
