יום שני, כ״ז אב תשפ״וMonday, August 10, 2026
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By JNi.Media
The WHO team hypothesized that male circumcision could be increased if religious leaders were taught about its advantages, and become well versed enough to discuss it with their congregations.
By JNi.Media
The survey found that Americans express warm feelings toward Jews, with half of US adults rating Jews at 67 degrees or higher on the 0-to-100 scale.
By JNi.Media
Reporters were called in for closed meetings and told it would be for everyone's benefit to not stress that an Arab resident of Haifa committed a 'nationalistic' crime.
By Rabbi Dr. Nathan Lopes Cardozo
Nobody doubts that unity of the Jewish people is of crucial importance. Still, we have to ask ourselves if in all cases unity is really THE highest value to strive for.
Monsey has gone from a bucolic small town to a center of conflict where both sides having strong arguments.
By JNi.Media
The group that's most underrepresented are the religiously unaffiliated, which accounts for 23% of the general public but is represented by only 0.2% of Congress.
MK Yehuda Glick believes that dialogue not legislation is what's needed to lower the decibel level of the Muezzins.
By JNi.Media
Instead of trying to hide anything, the commander offered the scheming soldier help and psychological care.
By Rabbi Dr. Nathan Lopes Cardozo
In biblical days, the prophets were astir while the world was sleeping. Today, the world is astir while the synagogues are sleeping. Blessed are the young people who are waking up.
By Ben Cohen
What is worrying is that measures to protect the Yazidis from future brutalities have been set back by the Iraqi parliament decision.
Over 20 religious leaders from east Asia arrived in Israel Monday for a four-day summit in Jerusalem.
“Without my uncle's encouragement and the encouragement I received from my husband and family, I wouldn’t have gotten as far as I have already,” she said.
By Rabbi Dr. Nathan Lopes Cardozo
Faith means that we worship and praise God before we affirm His existence; we respond before we question
By JNi.Media
Using the US' enormous economic clout, FATCA bullies the world's financial institutions into reporting on their American clients to Uncle Sam.
By JNi.Media
Police interrogated with a warning two employees of the Haifa Religious Council, one of them senior.
No danger of the Jews becoming a minority in the combined area of Judea, Samaria and the pre-1967 Israel.
The Israeli government was respectful enough to offer Reform Jews their own location at one of the holiest sites in Judaism in order to pray as they please.
As Orthodox Jews who understand the value of the Torah and the importance of following Halacha – how can we change this new secular Jewish paradigm?
By Bernard Beck
Jewish identity has been an issue in the Jewish community at least since the beginning of the Common Era, and perhaps even before.
Yiddish words are increasingly seeping into the English language.
By Anat Berko
Jihad, a holy war against the infidel, is the personal duty of every Muslim, and if he does not wage it, he will die as a religious hypocrite.
By Soeren Kern
"The Left has singularly lacked courage in the difficult fight to defend secularism."
When Chassidim make a request to a government official, he pays attention.
Thirty-eight Sejm members representing Tusk’s ruling Civic Platform party joined with the opposition in voting to outlaw ritual slaughter.
I know families with an OTD child that are very right wing, moderate Charedi, and right wing Modern Orthodox.
Divine affirmation is the foundation of Judaism. Everything else comes after.
They live in a world apart from the rest of observant Jewry.
By Jeremy Rosen
But surely, you will say, Judaism requires one to respect one’s religious leaders. In theory this is so.
By Aryeh Savir, Tazpit News Agency
The two were recorded on security cameras as they were ripping a Mezuzah off the wall
The IDF gets a new weapon next year. Meet Baltimore-born Nili Block and Mumbai convert Sarah Avraham, both of them religious and the new world champs in Thailand-style kick-boxing.
The record number of kipa-wearing Jews in the new Knesset surely shows that secular Jews do not really hate religious Jews.
By Batya Medad
Everything Dov Indig, killed in action during the Yom Kippur War, said about the secular kibbutz movement has happened.
Lapid is a patriot who is both honest and who has a clear vision for the future. A vision that is inclusive of all!
Among the many things Judaism can do for you is to give meaning to your life.
I don’t know what is in the air in Israel that makes some people think that they are doing the right thing by God in sticking knives into the heads of their opponents.
A large menorah covered in seashells and used to spread the light of Hanukkah at Miami Beach was vandalized on Sunday, scrawled with black graffiti stating “You Killed Jesus”.
'Shomer negiah,' the halachic bar on physical contact with the opposite sex, is wrongly treated by many as a Chumra that many do not observe.
I have not done this before. I have never memorialized two of the closest people to me in one article. I gave it a lot of thought, and it is not just because they died within hours of each other two years ago that I decided to do this. It is also because there was a tremendous connection between them, and as I thought of each one I was overwhelmed by the similarities.
By JTA
A Muslim imam in Gaza has issued a religious edict, or fatwa, that says it is a sin to violate the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
I see nothing wrong with our participating with all American citizens in observing Thanksgiving.
Muhammad As’ad Bayoudh al-Tamimi is a Palestinian columnist living in Jordan. In the past he has often clearly expressed the opinions of the man on the Arab street. Following the interview that Muhammad Abbas gave to Channel 2 (aired on Nov. 2, 2012), in which he gave up the right to return to live in […]
By Adam Levick
IDF strikes on Nov. 18 knocked out the Hamas television stations Al Aqsa and Al Quds in Gaza, but Hamas leaders were likely not too concerned, and knew they could always count on Plan B: Propagandizing at the Guardian.
By Tzvi Fishman
Strolling around Tel Aviv and seeing how the words of our Prophets have come to pass in our generation, is as much of a spiritual experience as spending a day in the holy city of Tzfat.
By Meir Indor
The Knesset members who “take care of things” for us deserve to be praised, not insulted: people like Uri Ariel and Zevulun Orlev, whose offices are filled day and night with the representatives of organizations and institutions, religious and secular. And they “take care” of these people. It’s true that Ariel and Orlev received popularity ratings of only three percent in a recent poll of the national-religious community, but this isn’t their problem—it’s the respondents’ problem. Orlev and Ariel are too busy for self-promotion.
By Tzvi Fishman
A few readers have written me lately, saying that my blogs are too hard-hitting, and that I would have better results with honey than with smashing people over the head with a sledgehammer. I am not totally convinced
The Israeli city of Modi'in is slammed from an unlikely direction - Israel's civil right's organization, the Association for Civil rights in Israel (ACRI). Granted ACRI doesn't have the most objective agenda, and their voice was loudly missing when it came the Disengagement in 2005, but they are to be praised for doing the right thing when it comes to Modi'in.
By Tzvi Fishman
The yartzeit of our Matriarch, Rachel, falls this year on Shabbat. Every year, more and more people gather at Rachel’s Tomb to pay respects to the Matriarch who is known as Rachel Emanu - Rachel Our Mother. Thousands of pilgrims will travel there today and tomorrow from all over the country, and perhaps 200,000 more will make the annual pilgrimage the day after Shabbat, every type of Jew there is, religious and non-religious, Haredim, Hasidim, and Dati Leumi, men, women, and children, busload after busload after busload, from far and near, waiting long hours for their turn to enter the small but beautifully renovated tomb near Betlechem on the way to Efrata .
Several prominent Religious Zionist rabbis in Israel have fallen victim to the OTD (Off the Derech) phenomenon. Rav Shlomo Aviner, Rav David Bigman, and Rav Yoram Tzohar each have a daughter that has departed from the observant ways of their parents. So for those parents who have OTD children, you are not alone. There are some very prominent people who join you. One may ask: How can I publicize something like this about such prominent leaders in Klal Yisroel, since it might be embarrassing to them? The answer is that they do not hide it. They willingly participated in a film that tells their story.
By Tzvi Fishman
Dear Rabbi: With elections approaching in Israel, I am searching for a religious political party for which to vote. When I think about voting for Shas, I remember their support for Oslo, the surrender of parts of Eretz Yisrael, giving rifles to our enemies, and the terrible sea of Jewish blood that was spilled after the Oslo Accords were signed. That is not the Torah I am searching to find.
There has been a lot of discussion about young people abandoning Mitzvah observance (going off the derech) over the past few years. A lot of that discussion took place here. Indeed it has been declared a crisis by some. The focus of this issue in the religious media has been primarily in the Charedi world. Many theories have emerged as to why children go OTD. Among them: being sexually abused and the negative reactions to it by family and community, dysfunctional family situations, faulty educational environments, teachers unprepared to deal with questions of faith, or being overly sheltered from the world so that rebellion occurs when they are exposed to it unprepared.
In its most recent edition, Ami Magazine has accused Professor Samuel Heilman - a distinguished Professor of Sociology at Queens College of hating Charedim. I am all too familiar with accusations like this as I am often accused of being a Charedi hater myself. But the truth is that neither I nor Professor Heilman are such a thing.
By Karen Lugo
The Iranian Green Revolution had brave Neda Agha-Soltan, and the Pakistanis have the stubbornly courageous Malala Yousufzai. At fourteen, when the Taliban tried to assassinate Malala for promoting education for girls, she had been defying the Taliban for years. Whether these girls are catalysts for sustained revolutions may well depend on how many in the West […]
By JTA
European Jewish Congress President Moshe Kantor unveiled a model bill designed to set “strict legal terms” on religious freedoms for the continent.
Where I now work, there is a small kitchen where workers can have lunch. We take our lunch breaks at different times, and I usually take mine at the same time as an unassuming young man named Benny Green, a 25-year-old who works in the company’s stockroom.
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.
Why is there so much animosity between Charedi and Dati Leumi/Religious Zionist factions? I can't fully answer the question. But I do have some thoughts about it. I think it is because Israelis are far more idealistic about their religious values - especially those who make Aliyah.
By Tzvi Fishman
I found some essays penned by Diaspora Jews who succumbed to the Sin of the Spies in their negative reports of the Holy Land. Oy.
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.
There are many people who are born frum that have issues that are similar to ba'alei teshuva. We shouldn’'t be singling them out. But then the Rav went right into bashing Modern Orthodoxy Although he didn't label them outright it was clear from the context that the Modern Orthodox Jew is, according to him, the one with the real problem.
By Shiraz Maher
Fears for the future of religious minorities in Egypt were accentuated earlier this month when it was announced that the last synagogue in the country would be closed down. The Eliyahu Hanavi Synagogue, which had operated in Alexandria, was the last functioning center of Jewish life in the country. It is now clear that its cavernous halls, built in the nineteenth century, will not be open to worshippers hoping to mark Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur services this year.
With all the bacteria a mouth is known to contain - and the possibility that it might contain bacteria or viruses that are very harmful to a vulnerable 8-day-old child while an adult carrier might not even be aware of it - it is not exactly rocket science to know that putting your mouth on an open wound is not a good idea.
The Western media are not the only ones who fail to see the symbolism of raising al-Qaeda’s banner on 9/11. Our President missed it as well.
By Sandy Eller
The New York City Board of Health was scheduled to vote this Thursday (two days after this issue went to press) on a measure requiring parents to sign a consent waiver before allowing a mohel to perform metzitzah b’peh, or oral suctioning, on their infants.
After Muslims killed thousands of Americans we did everything we could to learn about their religion, to celebrate it and soothe their ruffled feathers.
State Assembly candidate Moshe Tischler is calling on New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to explore all legal options against Mayor Bloomberg’s attempt to regulate the millennia - old religious practice of bris milah.
Approximately 300 protesters across the religious spectrum demonstrated in eastern Berlin in favor of religious freedom and the decriminalization of circumcision in Germany.
If it wants to survive and thrive, Israel must base itself upon three key concepts: identity, meaning, and liberty.
By Alan Magill
The five-year-old boy was in a church in Puerto Rico with his parents. As they and his grandparents were Catholics, that made him Catholic – as far as his young mind could figure.
3.5% of the young people interviewed attempted suicide.
For the New York State Legislature in the September 13 primaries for the Democratic designation in the November general election:
An increasing number of Orthodox Jews are questioning their faith and educators don't know how to respond.
In Bais Yaakov, you were either they way they wanted you to be, or you were wrong.
By Soeren Kern
A recent study revealed that nearly half of all Turks living in Germany say they hope there will be more Muslims than Christians in Germany in the futureIslam is becoming an increasingly important component of the value structure of Turks in Germany, especially among the younger generation of Turkish-Germans, who hold religious views more radical than their elders' views.
A small group of religious Jews accomplished what Israel's foreign ministry could not in 3 years of attempted diplomacy - namely, to meet with representatives from the Turkish government and attempt to heal the Turkey-Israel rift. From August 15 - 17, Shas MK Nissim Ze'ev, Shas deputy finance minister Yitzchak Cohen, the chief Rabbi of Geneva, Professor Mordechai Kedar of Bar Ilan University and other leaders met with no less than twenty Turkish parliamentarians.
Dr. Mordechai Kedar on the visit of a recent Israeli delegation to Turkey and why Israelis faithful to their religion and not the disciples of Left may be Israel's best chance at improving relations with its neighbors.
By Tibbi Singer
Among the items that Tzohar is calling for will be to elect new rabbinical court judges who would be more open to the needs of the general public, not just the religiously observant sectors; and new guidelines for managing the marriage, divorce and conversion processes in Israel – three areas that have been particularly alienating to secular Israelis.
Fact is there is of course nothing wrong with raising standards of religious observance. As long as it is voluntary. But when schools start making new demands along those lines, they completely ignore individual choice. Being Machmir should be an individual choice and not forced upon anyone. These strictrures have nothing to do with basic Halacha. They have to do with image.
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 JTA
The College of Charleston received $2 million to be split between Jewish life on campus and full tuition scholarships for the children of clergy and religious educators. The Samuel R. and Regina K. Shapiro Endowment Scholarship was announced Monday with an initial $1 million pledge dedicated to a four-year scholarship program for the children of […]
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.
By Yoel Meltzer
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.
By Tzvi Fishman
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?
By JTA
A bipartisan group of 20 Congressmen sent a letter to the German government expressing “deep concern” over a recent German court decision to effectively ban circumcision on young boys. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), authored the letter, which was addressed to Peter Ammon, the German ambassador to the United […]
By JTA
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 the violence and reached out to the Sikh community at a national level to express concern, condolences and solidarity, as well as offer its resources and guidance on institutional security […]
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.
Unless otherwise noted, all quotations are from “The Forerunners – Dutch Jewry in the North America Diaspora” by Robert P. Swierenga, Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 1994. The nineteenth century witnessed a decline in religious observance by most of American Jewry. Changes were instituted in Orthodox synagogues that led many of them to affiliate with […]
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.
By Mark Durie
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.
By JTA
Jewish groups were among the 42 religious and secular organizations that told five members of Congress that their recent allegations of Muslim Brotherhood infiltration of the U.S. government were endangering religious freedom. Last month, five Republican lawmakers wrote to various government agencies and asserted that among others, Huma Abedin, a deputy chief of staff for […]
By Tzvi Fishman
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.
By Moshe Herman
Yishai and Malkah give a touching memorial for a friend and talk about the difference between religious and secular Jews in the IDF.
By Barry Rubin
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.
August 7, 2026 
