cavernous-desperate

This Years Tisha b'Av Fast: The Rotem Conversion Bill

This Years Tisha b’Av Fast: The Rotem Conversion [...]

Golinkin: Fair Access to the Kotel

His solution is essentially thus: If the Orthodox get free access to the kotel at all hours, so should the non-Orthodox, at their own [...]

Halakhic Doormen Building

I’m sure this has been addressed by someone at some point, but if one lives in a doorman building, can one’s doorman be Jewish and on still work on Shabbat or Yom [...]

A Dangerous Man

Plane diverted when boy suspiciously puts on phylacteries / tefillin. As rabbijam quipped on the Shefa list: “From what I understand, the pilot diverted the plane to Philly instead of Kentucky out of concern that the boy wouldn’t find a minyan in Kentucky. [...]

Are Tzitzit Egalitarian?

Women of the Wall is not and has not been an egalitarian group in any way. Nofrat and Anat haven’t been arrested/questioned because of egalitarian services in the gender-separated area, but for practicing an authentic Jewish [...]

What the Women of the Wall Want

Simply put, our goal is to obtain the freedom to pray and to do everything that is halachically permitted for women on the women’s side of the mechitza. This includes reciting prayers together that do not require a minyan, and, yes, most of all, it includes reading from the Torah. (Though it has been many [...]

An New Israeli Siddur

Andy Sacks writes about the new Israeli siddur (Hebrew, translated) put out by the Masorti movement:

But it is one new Siddur that is creating a stir here in Israel. The Masorti Movement has just, together with Yediot Books, published V’Ani Tefilati: Siddur Yisraeli. One thousand radio spots are being broadcast to draw the attention of [...]

Blown Up At the Airport

Current Events in Israel, from article, blog 1, 2

Sussman's destroyed laptop.

Toward the beginning of the search an officer began clicking through the photos on my camera.  She froze on a picture  of graffiti, which read “Fuck” scrawled next to the Jewish star of David. “Why do you have this picture?” She asked me rather [...]

Twilight: Kosher Vampires?

Jewish Screenwriter Pens ‘Kosher’ Vampires for ‘Twilight’

Vampires aren’t very Jewish,” Rosenberg says. “The most basic thing about them is that they are born out of Christian mythology.” Nevertheless, she is quick to point out that Meyer, a devout Mormon, has created her own vampire mythology, devoid of religious connotation, absent the Christian symbolism of crosses [...]

Whose Land Is It, Anyways?

Israel: In the Beginning of a Love Affair Between a Land and a People
R’ Daniel Burg writes:

One fact that has been repeatedly denied by Mr. Ahmadinejad, for example, is that the Jewish people have had a relationship with the land of Israel for thousands of years. …Why then, asks Rashi, does the Torah begin with [...]