Category Archives: Talmud

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(THE CONVERSATION) More Orthodox Jewish women around the world are following the path of ordination, though controversy over female rabbis continues in most Orthodox circles. But as more and more Orthodox women are showing, ordination is not the only route to religious leadership.

As a Jewish Studies professor who researches gender and religious authority, I have spent five years interviewing and observing Orthodox women who have been ordained. I have also spent several years researching the expansion of womens leadership roles outside the rabbinate, and the growing acceptance of their authority.

Just a decade ago, only a handful of women had been ordained by Orthodox rabbis decades after their peers in more liberal Jewish denominations. But in 2013, the stained-glass ceiling blocking womens leadership shattered, as the first group of female rabbinical students graduated from a New York seminary called Yeshivat Maharat.

Today, almost 50 Orthodox women have been ordained at Yeshivat Maharat. But other roles for women are growing and changing more quickly, with many serving as guides to Jewish law, professionally trained rabbis wives and congregational scholars.

Yoatzot halacha: Female religious guides

Yoatzot halacha, who are advisers or guides to Jewish law (halacha), are women who have studied Jewish legal texts on topics such as sexuality, intimacy, pregnancy, birth and what Orthodox Judaism calls family purity laws, which deal with menstruation. They also provide counseling to Jewish women about a variety of issues related to marriage, relationships, sex and reproduction.

Training for yoatzot halacha, or yoatzot for short, began in 1997 at the Nishmat program in Israel. Graduates answer questions posed on the phone or online. When the first class graduated in 1999, many of them began working on the yoatzot hotline. Today, Nishmats yoatzot have answered over 100,000 questions.

Many yoatzot work in communities in the U.S., the U.K. and Israel. They can authoritatively answer questions about the laws of Taharat Hamishpacha, or family purity, and teach classes about them. Some yoatzot are hired by individual synagogues, while others are employed by a community, with their salary paid by multiple synagogues.

Yoatzot and their advocates make it clear that they are not rabbis and often define their authority as focusing on the laws of family purity. Yet they present an alternative mode of legal decision-making on these issues that sometimes cut ordained rabbis out of the picture.

In my own research, Ive seen how the way yoatzot provide answers differs from a rabbi. When yoatzot answer questions about family purity, they answer based on their understanding of Jewish law as well as their own personal experiences observing these laws. It is precisely this expertise and empathy that draw Orthodox women to turn to yoatzot and not rabbis.

Yoatzot also answer questions brought anonymously through the website, which is a significant shift from how rabbis are used to answering legal questions one on one. They might also engage in longer conversations about marital happiness and sexual satisfaction.

The professionalization of the rebbetzin

For generations, the closest women could come to being religious leaders was to marry them instead. But in recent years, the role of the rabbis wife, called a rebbetzin, has become more professionalized, with formal training and institutional authority as is true of many Christian preachers wives, as well.

The Orthodox Unions Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus has placed rabbinic couples on more than 20 college campuses in North America to mentor, teach and guide Jewish students. The program says it trains Orthodox rabbis and their wives to help Orthodox students on secular campuses balance their Jewish commitments with their desire to engage the secular world. Husbands positions are full time, while their wives are part time. They receive distinct training and are paid separately.

Even ultra-Orthodox rebbetzins formally serve as outreach activists to non-Orthodox Jews. Often, young couples will receive training for their future roles while living in Jerusalem for several years. The organization Ner LeElef, for example, trains men and women separately in the skills they will need as outreach activists. Womens positions include traditional womens tasks like cooking and hosting guests, as well as teaching classes and recruiting unaffiliated Jews into the ulta-Orthodox movement.

Many ultra-Orthodox rebbetzins leverage the internet to further their outreach. Women refer to their roles as one of spiritual leadership, not clergy. This term is meant to distinguish them from rabbis while simultaneously creating a unique leadership position.

Congregational scholars

Finally, Orthodox women have benefited from an increase in opportunities for them to study rabbinic texts, particularly the Talmud, which is often seen as a catalyst for their religious leadership.

The first womens seminary opened in Israel in the 1980s, and since then, Orthodox women have had several more options for advanced Talmud study in the U.S. and Israel. Of note is the Drisha Scholars Circle, which until 2014 educated women in the same material that men would study for ordination. Yeshiva University in New York has been offering students a similar opportunity for advanced Talmud study through the Graduate Program in Advanced Talmud Studies for Women.

Women who have received this high level of religious education have also been holding positions of leadership in synagogues.

Take Lincoln Square Synagogue in New York, which has a history of pushing boundaries regarding womens involvement in synagogue ritual. In the early 1970s, it was among the first Orthodox synagogues in New York to hold a bat mitzvah, the girls version of a coming-of-age ceremony that was traditionally only available to boys. In the late 1990s, Lincoln Square Synagogue hired its first female congregational intern, and has had several since many of whom completed advanced Talmud studies for women or had Ph.D.s in Jewish Studies.

Other Orthodox women with Ph.D.s serve in positions of congregational leadership elsewhere. Dr. Mijal Biton, for example, is not ordained but is the Rosh Kehilla, or head of the community, of The Downtown Minyan in New York.

As they offer classes and answer questions for women, female religious leaders are creating a new cadre of educated Orthodox women. Jewish philanthropies, meanwhile, are investing in women as congregational leaders in order to inspire the next generation. Together, they are formalizing new spaces for women within the Orthodox Jewish community and changing how girls in their communities see their own potential.

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Orthodox Jewish women's leadership is growing and it's not all about rabbis - Middletown Press

John Francis Wade's name is assigned to the inspiring Christmas hymn "O Come, All Ye Faithful." The lyrics are an open invitation to come and meet the newborn King, Christ the Lord.

It's a bugle call that moves us toward our purpose in Christ. The marginalized are welcomed, and the broken can be healed. The oppressed can be liberated, and the weak can be made strong.

Although written in the 1700's, this hymn perpetually returns us to Luke 2 styles of proclamations. It announces that our Savior was born. Isaiah 9:6 tells us His name is called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. I will also add He's my Savior, Advocate, Healer, Provider, He is Alpha and Omega, the Bread of Life, the Good Shepherd, Immanuel, King of Kings, Lamb of God, Messiah, Light of the World, Redeemer, He's the Way, the Truth, the Light, and so much more.

It's not the first time God has used laborers like Wade to bring good tidings. God used Luke to bring the same amazing news of joy that the "Messiah, the Lord -- has been born tonight in Bethlehem," Luke 2:10-11.

Good news to the poor is proclaimed in Luke 4:18. Samuel of Talmud shared the good news of deliverance from our enemies in 2 Samuel 18:31. Good news of salvation can be found in Psalms 96:2. And, we know we can sing the good news every day to remind us that the Lord is the one who saves us, 1 Chronicles 16:23.

I first learned of Wade in a book entitled, Then Sings My Soul, by Robert Morgan. It is a book of songs and explains why, how, and/or when the stories were written. The book shares that Wade was a hymn writer and left his home in England to settle in France under persecution. After his death, Wade's handwritten work was carried beyond France's borders by English Catholics.

One hymn in particular reached the hands of an Anglican minister named Rev. Frederick Oakeley. Being moved by the lyrics, Oakeley translated it into English and finally settled on the first line translation of, "O Come, All Ye Faithful, Joyful and Triumphant!"

Today, I'm reading Luke 2 at the same time I'm reading about Wade's narrative. I read that one of God's angels, escorted by a multitude of angels, brought the message of Christ's birth beyond the limits of Heaven. They gathered above a field to proclaim this amazing news to shepherds.

They invited the faithful shepherd folks to bare witness of fulfilled prophesy. After confirming what they had been told, they went out glorifying and praising God for all that they had seen.

I applaud Wade, Oakeley, the angel and the host of angels, and shepherds for becoming God's messengers. One man's love of music ushered in a 1700 good tidings revival. Another, his devotion to God and his wish for the hymn to be heard is the reason I am writing this story.

Biblical field workers, and angels showed us the outcome when we obediently serve according to our calling.

Join me in sharing some really good news today. Someone needs to know that God loves them. He loved them so much that He sent His only son to undo the damage caused by the devil, 1 John 3:8b. That's why we extend the invitation, "O come let us adore Him; O come let us adore Him; O come let us adore Him; Christ the Lord."

Luke 2:10b-14 "I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger." And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly army of angels praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace among people with whom He is pleased."

Brenette Wilder of Lee's Summit, Mo., (formerly of Altheimer, Ark.), is president of Kansas City Teen Summit, author of Netted Together (nettedtogether.org), and blogger at (wordstoinspire105953116.wordpress.com)

Editor's note: Pastors, ministers or other writers interested in writing for this section may submit articles for consideration to [emailprotected] Please include your phone number and the name and location of your church or ministry.

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OPINION | BRENETTE WILDER: The heavenly invitation - Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Jacob was on his deathbed. He summoned his children. He wanted to bless them before he died. But the text begins with a strange semi-repetition:

Gather around so I can tell you what will happen to you in days to come. Assemble and listen, sons of Jacob; listen to your father Israel. (Gen. 49:1-2)

This seems to be saying the same thing twice, with one difference. In the first sentence, there is a reference to what will happen to you in the days to come (literally, at the end of days). This is missing from the second sentence.

Rashi, following the Talmud, says that Jacob wished to reveal what would happen in the future, but the Divine presence was removed from him. He tried to foresee the future but found he could not.

This is no minor detail. It is a fundamental feature of Jewish spirituality. We believe that we cannot predict the future when it comes to human beings. We make the future by our choices. The script has not yet been written. The future is radically open.

This was a major difference between ancient Israel and ancient Greece. The Greeks believed in fate, moira, even blind fate, ananke. When the Delphic oracle told Laius that he would have a son who would kill him, he took every precaution to make sure it did not happen. When the child was born, Laius nailed him by his feet to a rock and left him to die. A passing shepherd found and saved him, and he was eventually raised by the king and queen of Corinth. Because his feet were permanently misshapen, he came to be known as Oedipus (the swollen-footed).

The rest of the story is well known. Everything the oracle foresaw happened, and every act designed to avoid it actually helped bring it about. Once the oracle has been spoken and fate has been sealed, all attempts to avoid it are in vain. This cluster of ideas lies at the heart of one of the great Greek contributions to civilization: tragedy.

Astonishingly, given the many centuries of Jewish suffering, biblical Hebrew has no word for tragedy. The word ason means a mishap, a disaster, a calamity but not tragedy in the classic sense. A tragedy is a drama with a sad outcome involving a hero destined to experience downfall or destruction through a character flaw or a conflict with an overpowering force, such as fate. Judaism has no word for this, because we do not believe in fate as something blind, inevitable and inexorable. We are free. We can choose. As Isaac Bashevis Singer wittily said: We must be free: We have no choice!

Rarely is this more powerfully asserted than in the Unetaneh tokef prayer we say on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Even after we have said that On Rosh Hashanah it is written and on Yom Kippur it is sealed who will live and who will die, we still go on to say, But teshuvah, prayer and charity avert the evil of the decree. There is no sentence against which we cannot appeal, no verdict we cannot mitigate by showing that we have repented and changed.

There is a classic example of this in Tanakh.

In those days Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah, son of Amoz, went to him and said, This is what the Lord says: Put your house in order, because you are going to die; you will not recover. Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, Remember, Lord, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes. And Hezekiah wept bitterly. Before Isaiah had left the middle court, the word of the Lord came to him: Go back and tell Hezekiah, the ruler of my people: This is what the Lord, God of your father David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will heal you.(2 Kings 20:1-5; Isaiah 38:1-5)

The prophet Isaiah had told King Hezekiah he would not recover, but he did. He lived for another 15 years. God heard his prayer and granted him stay of execution. From this the Talmud infers, Even if a sharp sword rests upon your neck, you should not desist from prayer. We pray for a good fate but we do not reconcile ourselves to fatalism.

Hence there is a fundamental difference between a prophecy and a prediction. If a prediction comes true, it has succeeded. If a prophecy comes true, it has failed. A prophet delivers not a prediction but a warning. He or she does not simply say, This will happen, but rather, This will happen unless you change. The prophet speaks to human freedom, not to the inevitability of fate.

I was once present at a gathering where Bernard Lewis, the great scholar of Islam, was asked to predict the outcome of a certain American foreign policy intervention. He gave a magnificent reply. I am a historian, so I only make predictions about the past. What is more, I am a retired historian, so even my past is pass. This was a profoundly Jewish answer.

In the 21st century, we know much at a macro- and micro-level. We look up and see a universe of a hundred billion galaxies each of a hundred billion stars. We look down and see a human body containing a hundred trillion cells, each with a double copy of the human genome, 3.1 billion letters long, enough if transcribed to fill a library of 5,000 books. But there remains one thing we do not know and will never know: What tomorrow will bring.

The past, said L. P. Hartley, is a foreign country. But the future is an undiscovered one. That is why predictions so often fail.

That is the essential difference between nature and human nature. The ancient Mesopotamians could make accurate predictions about the movement of planets, yet even today, despite brain-scans and neuroscience, we are still not able to predict what people will do. Often, they take us by surprise.

The reason is that we are free. We choose, we make mistakes, we learn, we change, we grow. The failure at school becomes the winner of a Nobel Prize. The leader who disappointed suddenly shows courage and wisdom in a crisis. The driven businessman has an intimation of mortality and decides to devote the rest of his life to helping the poor. Some of the most successful people I ever met were written off by their teachers at school and told they would never amount to anything. We constantly defy predictions. This is something science has not yet explained and perhaps never will. Some believe freedom is an illusion. But it isnt. Its what makes us human.

We are free because we are not merely objects. We are subjects. We respond not just to physical events but to the way we perceive those events. We have minds, not just brains. We have thoughts, not just sensations. We react but we can also choose not to react. There is something about us that is irreducible to material, physical causes and effects.

The way our ancestors spoke about this remains true and profound. We are free because God is free, and He made us in His image. That is what is meant by the three words God told Moses at the burning bush when he asked God for His name. God replied, Ehyeh asher Ehyeh. This is often translated as I am what I am, but what it really means is, I will be who and how I choose to be. I am the God of freedom. I cannot be predicted. Note that God says this at the start of Moses mission to lead a people from slavery to freedom. He wanted the Israelites to become living testimony to the power of freedom.

Do not believe that the future is written. It isnt. There is no fate we cannot change, no prediction we cannot defy. We are not predestined to fail; neither are we pre-ordained to succeed. We do not predict the future because we make the future: by our choices, our willpower, our persistence and our determination to survive.

The proof is the Jewish people itself. The first reference to Israel outside the Bible is engraved on the Merneptah stele, inscribed around 1225 BCE by Pharaoh Merneptah IV, Ramses IIs successor. It reads: Israel is laid waste, her seed is no more. It was, in short, an obituary. The Jewish people have been written off many times by their enemies, but they remain, after almost four millennia, still young and strong.

That is why, when Jacob wanted to tell his children what would happen to them in the future, the Divine spirit was taken away from him. Our children continue to surprise us, as we continue to surprise others. Made in the image of God, we are free. Sustained by the blessings of God, we can become greater than anyone, even ourselves, could foresee.

The late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks served as the chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, 1991-2013. His teachings have been made available to all at rabbisacks.org. This essay was written in 2015.

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A Word of Torah: On Not Predicting the Future Detroit Jewish News - The Jewish News

In South Park: Post-Covid, a special episode of the irreverent TV cartoon that aired onThanksgiving, Eric Cartman has converted to Judaism. He is a tallit-wearing Orthodox rabbi who studied Talmud, married a woman named Yentel, and named his children Moishe, Menorah, and Hakham.

Will Cartman take the next step and apply to make aliyah to Israel? The Law of Return, the law which established who has the right to claim citizenship in Israel, states, Every Jew has the right to come to this country as an oleh. For the purposes of this law, Jew is defined as a person who was born of a Jewish mother or has converted to Judaism and who is not a member of another religion. So Cartman should be approved for aliyah, right? Not so fast.

For the moment, let us assume that Cartman can produce a document indicating he has no serious criminal record. Let us also assume he went through the conversion process with rabbis who were affiliated with one of the major streams of Judaism and has a certificate of conversion. Now what?

Cartman may apply through a representative of the Jewish Agency (a shaliach aliyah). He will be asked to present letters from the converting rabbi describing the preparation and study that led up to his conversion. In addition, he will be asked to provide a letter stating that he has continued to be affiliated with a synagogue. Cartman will then have to undergo an interview with a representative of the Jewish Agencys Aliyah Department.

But Cartman should not pack up for his big move quite so quickly. The Jewish Agency may not act as quickly as he would hope. They may ask, in the name of Israels Interior Ministry, for additional documents. They may then go back and again ask for yet additional documents that had not initially been requested.

If Cartman converted through an Orthodox Beit Din, he may have a problem obtaining approval. There are surprisingly few Orthodox rabbis in North America who are acceptable to the Interior Ministry. This owes to an agreement made over a decade ago between Israels Chief Rabbinate and the RCA (Rabbinical Council of America), the mainstream Modern Orthodox rabbinic association.

When a candidate for aliyah has undergone conversion through the Conservative/Masorti movement, the Masorti Rabbinical Assembly in Israel is asked if we stand behind the conversion. This occurs when there may be a question in the mind of the shaliach. The same applies to those who convert through the Reform movement. The Reform movement will be asked if they stand behind the conversion.

With regard to an Orthodox convert wishing to make aliyah, even if the process had been sincere, and the converting rabbis are respected, approval of the converting Beit Din must come from the official Chief Rabbinate. Many, perhaps most, Orthodox rabbis in North America are not acceptable to the Chief Rabbinate.

Should it be that Cartman had been converted by rabbis who were not affiliated with any of the major rabbinic organizations and who daven (pray) at a synagogue that is not affiliated with a major association of synagogues, his right to make aliyah will likely be challenged. This can take months and even years.

Should Cartman seek to understand the cause of the delay in processing his aliyah application, chances are that he would contact his shaliach or officials at the Jewish Agency. If that shaliach bothers to reply, Cartman is likely to be told that there is nothing to be done as his file is under consideration in the Interior Ministry.

He may be told that there are issues that are being investigated. Which issues? That information is often not supplied to the applicant. At other times, the information provided by the authorities is just inaccurate. The sincerity of the conversion may even be questioned by bureaucrats within the Interior Ministry.

It certainly should be the role of the Aliyah Department (which has some very devoted and hardworking people) to advocate on behalf of Diaspora Jews who have applied for aliyah and who have seemingly met all of the demands spelled out in the Interior Ministrys criteria for aliyah. But sadly, in far too many cases this does not happen. Rather than pressure the Interior Ministry to act in keeping with the criteria for aliyah by a convert to Judaism (which, oddly, have never officially been published), the Jewish Agency, and/or the Interior Ministry, will allow the applicant to twist in the wind without providing full information as to what issues may be causing the delay. Or they may simply say that the matter is out of their hands.

Efforts to make the system a bit more user-friendly have gone nowhere. The Interior Ministry, obligated under their own criteria to provide an answer to the applicant within sixty days, rarely does so. Efficiency improvements promised by high-ranking Jewish Agency officials have gone nowhere.

Cartman has one advantage: he is a Caucasian from North America. Converts from less affluent countries, in particular applicants of color, will often find the aliyah application process nothing short of hellish. Too often the only way to obtain a just result requires turning to the courts. But this process is costly and lengthy.

It seems that officials at the Jewish Agency are reluctant to challenge the Interior Ministrys actions. They appear uninterested in rocking the boat. Perhaps they fear losing their aliyah mandate to Nefesh BNefesh, which years ago largely supplanted the Jewish Agencys role in encouraging and assisting North American aliyah. Perhaps they are stuck in a way of thinking created by the decades of ministry control by the Haredi Shas political party.

Cartman is just a TV caricature, but given the severe deficiencies at both the Interior Ministry and the Jewish Agency, the aliyah process can all too often be just as cartoonish.

Rabbi Andrew Sacks is the director of the Rabbinical Assembly of Israel and the Religious Affairs Bureau.

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South Park's Cartman converted to Judaism, but can he move to Israel? - The Times of Israel

Contemporary feminists may differ regarding the degree to which womens distinctiveness and unique ways of knowing are inbuilt and essential or socially constructed, and whether it ought to supplement prevailing male conceptions of truth in some androgynous model, or (as some radical feminists suggest) override them completely. Nevertheless, all agree that the feminine perspective has something valuable to contribute, challenging prevailing male conceptions of truth as the irreducible, self-evident, and exclusive prism of reality.

The transformation that feminist consciousness has imposed upon academic scholarship (particularly in the humanities and social sciences) involves both critical and constructive aspects. On the critical level, the first step was to remove womens invisibility as both producers and subjects of knowledge. Beyond promoting the professional advancement of female scholars and including the works of women in course syllabi, this meant documenting whatever evidence could be found regarding womens relevance to the field in question.

At first, this attempt was conducted by studying womens lives, experiences, and cultural productivity according to the categories of traditional male scholarship. In other words, womens achievements were assessed according to male standards and in light of typically male pursuits. Eventually, however, it was understood that relying on these concepts and theoretical frameworks simply perpetuates womens invisibility. In assuming that the prevailing division of gender roles is correct and natural, and basing research on questions that were originally formulated only by men, scholars often missed much of what was distinctive about womens experiences.

Eventually, feminists began to understand that correcting the invisibility of women was not simply a matter of add women and stir. Making room for womens standpoint and ways of knowing affects the qualitative nature of this knowledge as well. Viewing research from a feminist perspective influences the way that scholars define their subject matter, what questions should be asked, and how the information that is elicited should be interpreted and applied. This also bears methodological implicationssuch as attaching greater prominence to qualitative interviews and personal narratives rather than faceless statistics.

Yet whether purporting to rely on the objectivity of historical facts or on the somewhat murkier waters of philosophical reflection, applying strictly universal standards to a field that is partial from the outset in its commitment to Jewish interests is problematic. Introducing feminist sensibilities as an added prism simply intensifies the futility of any pretensions to neutrality. This is not to say that the conversation between feminism, philosophy, and Judaism is an impossible project, or of dubious value. Instead of being conceived as a discipline engaged in disinterested pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, a sizeable chunk of Jewish thought is now driven by womens urge to resolve concrete issues that they face with regard to Judaisms central beliefs and practices.

The seeds of this more practical type of confrontation between Judaism, feminism, and philosophy were first strewn in the 1960s, when several liberally inclined Jewish women, such as Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem, joined what has come to be known as the second wave of American feminism. Initially, these women (well-educated but not necessarily in Jewish terms), didnt link their activity to their religious or ethnic identities. But this started changing a decade later, when some such women began to connect their sense of discrimination and lack of equal opportunity to their standing in Jewish traditionquestioning the glorification of their roles as wives and mothers, their subordinate status in Jewish law, their lack of direct representation in Judaisms canonic texts, their exclusion from religious leadership and active participation in the public domain, and so on.

Because the division of society by gender is such a fundamental component in the construction of Jewish tradition, the initial project of Jewish feminists was to reveal the extent to which sexism and the normative status of maleness underlie core assumptions of Jewish theology and practice and are embedded in the very grammar of the Hebrew language. The Torah addresses the male as the representative Jew. In later texts, the role and value of women are as a rule defined and limited even further by male interests and considerations. Women are not the intended audience and their experiences do not figure as a central topic worthy of discussion. In sum, traditional Jewish sources are the record of males looking out upon women as Other, reflecting male conceptualizations of women rather than flowing naturally from womens own self-understanding.

Surveying responses to this critique is complicated because of the great denominational diversity characterizing Judaism in modern times. Outside the mainstream, there have been marginal attempts to dabble in neopagan, pre-biblical Goddess theology, or post-monotheistic spiritualism. Most Jewish feminists, however, have chosen not to break completely with their normative monotheistic heritage. Differences between Reform, Reconstructionist, Conservative, modern Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox (or Haredi) Judaism in accommodating the feminist critique are generally linked to ideological divisions regarding the divinity of the Torah, the immutability of Halacha (Jewish law), and the relative importance of each to religious life.

Haredi Jews who equate acceptance of traditional norms with submission to Gods eternal will generally regard feminism as an intrusive movement foreign to Judaism that creates disturbing tension, if not downright conflict, with hallowed beliefs and practices. To the extent that this type of opposition has provoked a philosophical response, it typically consists of arguments appealing to essentialist views of gender or to other culturally and politically benign features of patriarchy that might justify male hegemony.

Among the unconvinced, some more liberally inclined feminists have chosen to rely upon selective appropriation of egalitarian motifs that already exist in Jewish tradition, dismissing the rest as merely the negative influence of passing extraneous sociological forces. This has led to scholarly efforts at what I term historical restorativismengaging in revisionist history in order to unearth evidence of more egalitarian practices of Judaism before its ideal standards became sullied. After the fashion of several noted Christian feminists, this approach has also encouraged developing new, more sophisticated exegetical methods in order to mine classical Jewish texts for precedents of womens inclusion or hidden hints of protest against their subordination, and privileging whatever interpretation gives the text the benefit of the doubt. Such efforts, which strive to afford contemporary women full equality in matters of ritual practice, communal authority, and opportunity for religious leadership in accordance with what is normally extended to men, align with what is generally regarded as second-stage feminism. In other words, they aim to provide women with an equal share in the male pie.

A third, and more radical stage of Jewish feminist thought, contends that theologyrather than sociologylies at the heart of the problem. Feminists adopting this stance are persuaded by internal connections that critics claim to have revealed between the monotheistic conception of God and male ways of thinking. To the extent that monotheism places men at the center, they argue, the world it constructs to make sense of human experience is also a world imbued with a male perspective. The entire shape of the religion, its basic paradigms, and perceptions of reality are especially suited to the male psyche, reflecting the hopes, needs, and fears of men living in a patriarchal framework.

Picturing an infinite God in exclusively male terms, according to this line of thought, is simply another form of idolatry. Moreover, binding worship to male-oriented conceptions of transcendence and to hierarchies of authority, dominion, and control leads to marginalizing female forms of spirituality which typically favor more spontaneous demonstrations of connectedness, intimacy, mercy, and love. Perhaps the most damning allegation raised in this context is the pernicious influence that the monotheistic notion of God exerts upon relations between men and women on the anthropological level. Third-stage feminists point out that religion does not merely create a certain social pattern; it also represents and reifies it, and thereby grants it legitimacy.

Students of Jewish thought persuaded by this level of critique, but still reluctant to part with their cultural identity as Jews, seek bolder forms of revisionism that can infuse the patriarchal formulae of tradition with softer feminine models. This includes scholarly efforts which might support the introduction of female imagery to the language of prayer, new woman-friendly rituals, and even new historical narratives designed to supplement and shape spaces empty of women in the Jewish collective memory. Despite its ultimately androcentric character, the mystic tradition of medieval Kabbalah and its later Hasidic offshoots, which feature a theosophy of embodied spirituality, rich feminine imagery of the Shekinah, and notions of reciprocal influences between the human and the divine, serve as an important resource for the revisionist project, as verified by the disproportionately high percentage of women scholars now engaged in this area of Jewish research.

A related issue raised by third-stage feminism is the extent to which Judaisms appropriation of Halacha as the central medium for religious expression is the product of male ways of thinking. Judith Plaskow, an influential feminist theologian associated with the Reform movement, acknowledges the fact that law constitutes an important part of Jewish teaching, but questions its suitability considering the feminine preference for more fluid forms of spirituality. She has also voiced doubt regarding Halachic potential for remedying womens status in tradition because of its systemic view of woman as Other. As against this skepticism, Rachel Adler, professor emerita of Jewish thought and gender studies at Hebrew Union College (also associated with the Reform movement), places a greater premium on Halacha as a necessary tool for preserving Jewish identity, but seeks proactive measures for breaking out of its authoritarian mode as a closed system of obsolete and unjust rules.

Precisely because modern Orthodoxy professes an ideological commitment to the Torah as a divine document and to the entire body of oral law as normative and binding, alongside engagement with secular culture as a positive value, the intensity of the challenge that this variety of Judaism faces in the conflict between Jewish demands for continuity and feminist conceptions of justice brings the stakes involved into greatest relief. Especially in its Israeli manifestations, I believe that modern Orthodox feminism (colored as it is by its own distinctive timing and sociopolitical setting), also currently serves as a hotbed for some of the most sophisticated and constructive contributions to Jewish thought to date. In true feminist fashion, I wont attempt to defend these contentions from some detached view from nowhere. Rather I will speak from my own personal experience as a modern Orthodox woman living in the State of Israel who has been engaged for nearly a lifetime in the study and practice of Jewish philosophy.

Growing up in this environment, I certainly experienced occasion for frustration at being excluded from key male opportunities for learning and spiritual activity. My very choice to enter the field of Jewish thought was largely determined by the fact that I am a woman. Arriving in Israel as a teenage immigrant, I hoped to enrich my Jewish background by taking courses in that area in which the Hebrew University most prided itself: Jewish studies. Had I been a male, my religious interest in advancing my Jewish literacy would most likely have led me to a yeshiva or to the universitys Talmud department. But because these avenues were not open to me at the time, I turned instead to what was then a less exclusively male disciplineJewish philosophy.

My interest in Jewish philosophy was not strictly academic in what was then the accepted understanding of the term. Beyond a wish to master this body of thought for its own sake, I was also on a spiritual quest, seeking to reinforce identification with a legacy of Orthodox Judaism to which I was committed by birth and upbringing. In order to make it my own, I felt the need to somehow translate its tenets and render them intelligible in the more universal terms of a broader philosophical and scientific milieu in which I was equally immersed. However, it never occurred to me at this stage to relate any personal gripes regarding my restricted Halachic status as a woman to my philosophical pursuits.

The entire shape of the religion, its basic paradigms and perceptions of reality, are especially suited to the male psyche, reflecting the hopes, needs, and fears of men living in a patriarchal framework.

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Even as a novice, I was aware of potential clashes between internal and external views of religious doctrine. Nevertheless, my basic trust in both led to a conviction that the two could somehow be reconciled in a manner that would be mutually enriching. Initially, I was also very much affected by the approach of historical positivism that characterized Jewish scholarly research at the time I began my studies. The pride of this approach, which could be categorized as Jewish intellectual history, was its pretension to freedom from personal biases or ideological interests. In a broader sense, however, this historicism was related to more general notions of truth as grounded in ultimate, indubitable, self-certifying propositions. Truth-seeking consisted, therefore, in the attempt to capture existing, predefined verities in the physical or metaphysical world by reaching down to the firm and stable foundations on which they rested. The corroboration of truth-claims, be they scientific, historical, philosophical, or theological, was, therefore, to be conducted on some neutral territory out there and to be judged only in terms of their correspondence to these foundations.

As a matter of fact, reliance upon foundationalism (that is, the notion that the edifice of all human knowledge must inevitably emerge from the staunchly solid and universal foundation of reason) was and still is the general approach assumed by most of my Orthodox colleagues engaged in academia (particularly in the natural sciences), to the extent that they are exposed and troubled by rival truth-claims. Such proponents of this approach, generally known as Torah u-madda, typically understand both bodies of thought as vying in the same ballpark in the attempt to capture objective reality. Thus, they conclude, each disciplines truth should be tested and measured by the same standards. In the event of clashes, one rendition must be correct and the other not.

In the tradition of Jewish thought, I found much support for the Torah u-madda position. Nevertheless, my exposure to the broader vistas of the social sciences and the humanities (history, archeology, comparative religion, literary criticism, and the like) eventually raised a host of qualitatively different questions that undermined a foundationalist view of religious truth-claims. After partaking of the forbidden fruit of this more comprehensive Tree of Knowledge, reliance upon a combination of ad hoc localized solutions to individual problems (anachronisms, inaccuracies, and contradictions in the biblical view of science and history; implausible descriptions of miraculous events; time- and culture-bound limitations in its theological and moral perceptions) seemed woefully inadequate to the task of responding to an ever-growing list of difficulties surrounding traditional accounts of the literary genesis of the Torah. The motley collection of patches applied in piecemeal fashion to various holes riddling the religious narrative began to lose their persuasive power when such flaws could be resolved so much more elegantly by one simple naturalistic explanation that left God and metaphysics out of the picture, a solution I was committed to rejecting.

Without consciously abandoning the Torah u-madda approach, I found myself increasingly drawn to precedents in Jewish thought that diverged from assumptions of direct correspondence between hard facts and the authoritative truth claims of religion. A chief source of inspiration was the thought of Rabbi A.I. Kook. As opposed to most scholars who focused on the nationalistic and political aspects of his thought, I was initially drawn to other features of his legacy: firstly, the fact that much of his writing took the form of a personal diary. Later I was also struck by his rejection of binary thinking as evidenced in his qualified attitude towards monotheism and its emphasis upon divine transcendence, his celebration of instinct, immersion in this-worldly activity and natural morality as indispensable conduits of spirituality, his ability to recognize the role of the historical process in the evolution of religious ideas, and his understanding that the main importance of religious truth statements was not their degree of correspondence with some external reality, but rather their influence on moral flourishing.

Years later I came to appreciate that most of these features are, from a gender perspective, characteristic of what has come to be associated with feminine ways of thinking. In retrospect their attraction for me may then have already been prompted by an intuitive sense that such predilections would somehow lead the way to a more comprehensive resolution of the incongruence between claims based on religious authority and those based on reason. But the direct impetus for working out such a resolution explicitly was a byproduct of the dramatic developments in the situation of Orthodox Jewish women that commenced a couple of decades later.

When Blu Greenberg, the acknowledged mother of modern Orthodox feminism, came out in 1981 with her groundbreaking book, On Women and Judaism, I found that many of the issues she raised overlapped with my own. However, her take tended to be phrased in political and sociological rather than theological terms. To the extent that she and other members of JOFA (the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, founded on her initiative) allowed themselves to proceed at all beyond acknowledging the predominantly male perspective of the Torah, they typically limited themselves to gingerly attempts at mitigating perceived injustices or anachronisms of the system on a practical level, from within the current boundaries of Halacha. In other words, this brand of feminism reached the second stage and went no further. Its unstated assumption was that the Torah may indeed have been phrased in terms of a patriarchal and pagan society, but it is not given to flesh and blood to change at will a tradition that is based upon a divinely inspired document.

Living in Israel, where Judaism is the majority culture and there is no clear division between church and state, limiting responses to conflict between religion and feminist concerns to select normative issues while ignoring their broader theological implications is far more difficult. Perhaps for this reason, the point that I came to appreciate was thatover and above considerations of justice or lack of a female perspective in biblical accounts of God, history, and the world at large, it is precisely in its unstated assumption about the nature of the Torah that the real problem of Orthodox feminism lies. In other words, the most troubling aspect of the feminist critique for modern Orthodoxy, as I saw it, was the more profound challenge that it posed to the central understanding upon which the authority of Jewish tradition has been based for millenniathat is, the very notion of a divinely revealed text.

If the Torah is from God, it should be above any human conditionality. But if the Torahs understandings of self, world, and God so clearly reflect a patriarchal social order, how are we to view the source of such a Torah? Since the perspective of the Torah is so limited, can we really credit it with being divine? Is it really describing God in words that God has revealed to us, or are these words perhaps merely the projection of our own wishes or social systems onto the cosmos in a religious language that is socially shaped and culture-bound, and therefore not binding upon us? The problem intensifies when we realize that all rabbinic commentary and Halachic legislation is based upon the legal and narrative sections of the Torah, which were always regarded by tradition as stemming directly from God, and therefore above human conditioning.

Admittedly, such questions were raised in limited form even in Talmudic times and surely apply to many other areas where Jews nowadays feel the time- and culture-bound nature of the Torah and later traditional texts. But beyond pointing to any particular scientific moral, or theological difficulty in the contents of the Torah, the uniqueness of the feminist critique lies in the fact that it highlights an all-pervasive male bias so implicit and subtle that the innocent reader usually remains unaware of its existence. This ultimately drives us to ask: Can any verbal message claiming revelatory status really be divine? Because language itself is shaped by the cultural context in which it is formulated, and is of necessity bound to a particular standpoint, is a divine and eternally valid message at all possible?

With these questions, the clash between Orthodoxy and feminism is transformed from a dispute over the facticity of Gods revelation at Sinai to a debate over issues of general bias and the ubiquitous traces of cultural relativism. And it is here that the insufficiency of traditional panaceas comes into boldest relief. Allegorical interpretations of problematic passages in the Torah will not solve anything in this case. Nor will the suggestion that difficulties were deliberately planted into the text for didactic reasons. The male bias cannot be limited to specific terms or passages; its all over the text.

It thus appeared obvious to me that if the feminist critique in its Jewish context threatens to relativize and conditionalize the entire corpus of traditional Halacha, Orthodox Jews stand in desperate need of a contemporary theology that will accommodate the following two requisites. Firstly, the ability to acknowledge with a maximum of intellectual integrity the degree to which the Torah and Halacha at large are formulated in a time- and culture-bound societal mold. Secondly, to assert that this same Torah is nevertheless the eternal voice of God speaking to us, with every word of that voice equally holy and indispensable, and even to find theological meaning in the fact that our sacred and revered texts have been bound to the implicit patriarchal premises which feminist thinkers have been uncovering.

Relying on elements in the thought of R. Kook and rabbinic tradition at large, I began developing the idea that it is still possible to maintain belief in the divinity of the Torah despite its androcentric bias and other marks of human imprint by breaking down the strict dichotomy between divine speech and natural historic process. My grounding for this approach, which I termed cumulativism, was based on three assumptions:

First, if the Torah is to bear a message for all generations, its revelation must be an ongoing process; a dynamic unfolding that reveals its ultimate significance only through time.

Second, Gods message is not expressed through the reverberation of vocal chords, but rather through rabbinic interpretation of the texts (which may or may not be accompanied by evolutionary developments in human understanding) and through the mouthpiece of history. History, and particularly what happens to the Jewish peoplethe ideas and forms of life they accept as well as the process of determining those they rejectis essentially another mode of ongoing revelation, a surrogate prophecy.

Third, that although successive rabbinic hearings of Gods Torah sometimes appear to contradict His original message, that message is never replaced. On a formal level, the original Sinaitic revelation always remains the foundational cultural-linguistic filter through which these new deviations are heard and understood. The sanctified formulations of the canonic texts continue to serve as the absolute, rock bottom parameters of Jewish belief and practice, even though subsequent revelations may totally transform their original import, even turning them on their head.

Applying the notion of cumulative revelation to the problem at hand, I suggested that religious believers might regard the rise of feminism in our day, like other phenomena in the past, as a heaven-sent vehicle for the transmission of Gods word. Such an understanding does not involve devaluing or supplanting the previous norms of patriarchy. But to the extent that the feminist critique takes hold and informs the lives of the Halachically committed, traditionalists may understand womens quest for equality as an updated expression of the divine will, indicating that we have outgrown earlier and more primitive forms of spirituality and are ready for a new, more sublime stage.

Not unexpectedly, my attempt to resolve the theological challenge of feminism by means of this dynamic understanding of revelation has received mixed reviews. It was welcomed enthusiastically by many members of the modern Orthodox community and others of a more liberal bent, who felt that such an approach offered them a way to reconcile deeply felt feminist sensibilities with their religious loyalties. Others regarded the move toward a more open-ended and naturalistic concept of revelation as giving up the traditionalist game from the outset, since the absolute and context-free character of the Torah has come to be so commonly accepted as the very essence of Orthodox Jewish theology. On the opposite end of the stick, dyed-in-the-wool feminists resisted considering patriarchy as even a temporary manifestation of divine providence or part of a gradual unfolding of divine intent.

Viewing the stakes of the argument from these variegated perspectives led me to a second, more radical theological stance. Drawing upon my previous forays into nonfoundationalist resources in Jewish and general philosophical thought, the urge to formulate a philosophically viable response induced me to appeal to a genre of postmodern theology that downplays the propositional import of religious doctrine in the life of the believer. According to this view, the primary interest of religious truth statements is not to discuss facts or establish history. Their main function operates on an entirely different plane: reflecting and fortifying a form of life and worldview to which we are inextricably bound by a combination of personal conviction, passion, and practical considerations.

While my view of revelation is deliberately fashioned in a manner that can coexist with universal naturalistic understandings, it certainly is not mandated by them. I personally prefer the notion of revelation through history and a nonpropositional view of religious truths for a variety of reasons. But my interest in introducing these ideas here is not to promote them specifically. Rather, it is to suggest that the contribution of feminism to Jewish thought cannot suffice with addressing parochial issues of Jewish continuity and practice. It also demands a confrontation with the inevitability of situated knowledge and diversity of opinion that feminism generates, and a response to this typically postmodern quandary in philosophically rigorous terms that bear universal provenance.

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Feminism Changes the Study of Jewish Thought - Tablet Magazine

Curb Your Enthusiasm has always been a Jewy show, but this season it is downright Jewish.

On the HBO sitcom, now in its 11th season, Larry David has never been shy about surfacing, and lampooning, Judaism and Jewishness. He has contemplated the dilemmas of Holocaust survival, waded into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (via a local chicken restaurant) andgotten stranded on a ski lift with an Orthodox Jew on Shabbat.

This season, its not just the occasional matzoh ball joke, orthe Yiddish lesson he gave Jon Hamm in the season premiere. David is plunging into questions of Jewish pride and belief, and if he isnt exactly Abraham Joshua Heschel, he could provide a Jewish educator with a semester of lively classroom debate.

In the latest episode, for example, a Jew for Jesus joins the cast of the show that Larrys character is developing for Hulu. Although neither Larry nor his Jewish friends are remotely religious, they seem genuinely upset by the actors apostasy, and Larry gives him a rather sober warning that he shouldnt proselytize on set.

A week earlier, a member of his golf club (played by Rob Morrow) asks Larry to pray for his ailing father. Larry declines, saying prayer is useless. He also wonders why God would need, or heed, the prayer of a random atheist like himself instead of the distressed son who wants his father to live.

For anyone who has gone to Hebrew school, its a familiar challenge, usually aired by the wiseacre in the back row who the teacher suspects is perhaps the most engaged student in the classroom. And it is not just atheists posing the question, Why pray? The Israeli philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz, a devout Orthodox Jew,believed thatworship of God must be totally devoid of instrumental considerations.

In addition to a Jewish funeral, the episode has a bonus theological theme: Middah kneged Middah, or as Morrows character puts it, what goes around comes around. Morrow warns Larry that his actions will have consequences, which actually gives Larry pause. If anything, the entire Curb enterprise is an exercise in Jewish karma. Larry is constantly being punished in ways large and small for his actions, inactions, meddling and slights. As the old theater expression has it, if Larry opens a donut shop to drive a rival out of business in act one, his own shop will burn to the ground in act three.

To dismiss him as self-hating is to miss out on the unmistakably Jewish conversation at the heart of the show.

A prior episode was even more self-consciously Jewish: Larry attends High Holiday services only because he lost a golf bet to the rabbi, and he literally bumps into a Klansman coming out of a coffee shop. The latter sets off a string of plot twists, as he and the KKK guy trade a series of favors and obligations that will have disastrous consequences for both. Larrys salvation comes at the end, when he blares a shofar from his balcony, literally raising the alarm on antisemitism and waking his neighbors to the threat of white supremacy.

The episode suggests the failure of good intentions. Larry spills coffee on the Klansmans robe and offers to have it dry-cleaned. Good liberal Jew that he is, Larry appears genuine in his belief that empathy is a better response to hate than confrontation, and that if he turns the other cheek it might lower the temperature in a post-Trump America. Of course, it doesnt work out that way, and the last word goes to his friend Susie Green, who performs a pointed act of Jewish sabotage that gets the Klansman pummeled by his fellow racists. Give David credit for embedding within a preposterous half-hour of television a debate about vengeance and resistance that engaged the followers of Jews as different as Jesus and Jabotinsky.

Make no mistake: The Larry David character is sacrilegious and heretical, and Curb is no friend of the religious mindset. But to dismiss him as self-hating is to miss out on the unmistakably Jewish conversation at the heart of the show. Davids character is a deeply principled person: Most of the nonsense he gets himself into is the result of his enforcing unspoken social rules that others appear to be flouting, whether it is taking too many samples at the ice cream counter or dominating the conversation (poorly) at the dinner table. Larry is rude and inconsiderate, but he is seldom wrong. He is what Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchikmight have called a Halachic Man an actualizer of the ideals of justice and righteousness, evenwhen the rest of the world resents it.

If you think I am overdoing it, remember thatthere is an actual discussion in Talmud about the right and wrong way of putting on a pair of shoes.

And just as in the Talmud, there are no easy answers in Davids moral universe: If a friend lends you his favorite, one-of-a-kind shirt, and you ruin it, what are your obligations to him? (See:Bava Metzia 96b)If a thief breaks into your house and then drowns in your swimming pool, which wasnt protected by the required fence, who is owed damages and how much? (See:Ibn Ezra on Exodus 22:1-2)

In last weeks episode, Larry even touched on consciously or not a classic debate in the Talmud: If you and a friend are stranded in the desert, and your canteen has only enough water for one of you to survive, must you share it or save your own life?

Yes, Larry was talking about sharing a phone charger, but if the Sages had cell phones, what do you think theyd be talking about?

Read more here:

Larry David has never been more Jewish than in this season's 'Curb' J. - The Jewish News of Northern California

While many people have heard of Hanukkah, the Jewish holiday that typically takes place during December and involves things such as menorahs, dreidels and challah. Others may wonder, what is the historical meaning behind the holidays traditions? And what do they mean to Jewish people?

Hanukkah, also spelled as Chanukah, takes place over eight days. It starts on the 25th night of Kislev the ninth month on the Hebrew calendar. This year, Hanukkah takes place from Nov. 28 to Dec. 6.

Ultimately, the holiday celebrates the light overcoming the darkness and the significance of its practices are meaningful and illustrious.

Hanukkahs history begins in the second century B.C. when the Maccabees, a group of Jewish people living in modern-day Israel, lead a rebellion against the Seleucid Empire under the rule of king Antiochus IV after refusing to worship Greek gods. The holiday remembers the rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem to God after the rebellion was over and Antiochus IV had been defeated. In fact, the word, Hanukkah is Hebrew for dedication, according to the Central Rappahannock Regional Librarys website,

A key part of Hanukkah is the lighting of the menorah. The menorah has eight candles that are lit on each night from left to right. It also contains a ninth branch that assists to light the other eight. The lighting of the menorah is accompanied by a special Hebraic blessing.

According to the Talmud, a Jewish text, after the Maccabees reclaimed the temple, they only had enough oil supply to keep their menorah lit for one night. Though, miraculously, the menorah remained lit for eight nights. The lighting of the menorah commerates this miracle and represents the idea that light will always defeat darkness. The latter is why Hanukkah is also often referred to as The Festival of Lights, according to My Jewish Learnings website.

Traditions abound during the time of Hanukkah including the serving of traditional foods such as latkes, fried potato pancakes, or sufganiyot which are jelly donuts. Challah, a braided loaf of bread, is also a popular food to eat and enjoy during Hanukkah.

Dreidels, which are spinning tops, are also often played with around Hanukkah. Players spin the four-sided object until they land on a letter in the Hebrew alphabet that instructs them what to do with the objects they have in the center like candies or pennies.

Depending on what letter the dreidel lands on, a player could collect all the objects in the center, do nothing, get half of the objects or add an object to the center. The person that has the most objects at the end of the game wins.

Contrary to popular belief, Hanukkah is not the Jewish Christmas, but instead, has a deeply rich history with traditions and stories that continue to inspire and bring joy to multiple generations.

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Hanukkah: The Jewish Festival of Lights, explained | Arts & Culture - Red and Black

I had my first abortion when I was 16, the result of immaturity and a lack of comprehensive sex education at my suburban Detroit high school in the 1970s. I had another abortion in my early 40s, after my amniocentesis revealed troubling chromosomal abnormalities. It was a pregnancy that my husband and I had very much wanted. And yet, I do not regret either abortion, and I do not feel shame. On the contrary, I view them as medical procedures akin to any other legal, accessible, science-driven form of medical care.

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court seems more likely than ever to take away our legal right to the medical care of a safe abortion. If the court overturns Roe v. Wade the 1973 case that affirmed our constitutional right to abortion 26 states are certain or highly likely to ban abortion outright. These statewide bans would disproportionately impact vulnerable people who do not have the economic means to travel to other states to access abortion care.

But banning access to abortion care doesnt impact only low-income people. It is a direct attack on our religious freedom as Jews. Restrictive abortion laws are rooted in a Christian understanding that life begins at conception. This tenet is antithetical to Jewish faith. The Talmud teaches that life begins at the first breath not at conception. Moreover, Jewish sources explicitly state that abortion is not only permitted but required if the pregnancy endangers the pregnant persons physical or psychological health. Indeed, Judaism affirms that the pregnant persons health and well-being always come before that of the fetus. Moreover, adhering to a Christian understanding of when life begins goes against the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees that no single religion should be enshrined into law or dictate public policy on any issue, including abortion.

The case before the Supreme Court was a carefully orchestrated effort by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), an organization with a $50 million annual budget to drive the Christian right agenda. The ADF is a religious army that writes model bills in concert with mission-aligned state lawmakers and funds any resulting legal cases. The ADF wrote the Mississippi law that is now before the Supreme Court, and it is the same organization driving a tsunami of anti-LGBT bills in states across the country. The ADF and its partner organizations, including the Family Research Council and the Heritage Foundation, believe the United States was ordained by God as a White Christian nation. Banning abortion care and limiting the rights of LGBT people are just the start of their ultimate goal of creating a White Christian nation in all forms.

To be sure, the Jewish community is not consonant. Jews who are anti-choice and those who dont align with the LGBT movement may legitimately feel that these issues are out of sync with their values.

But this isnt simply about abortion rights. That a medical procedure is up for political debate at the Supreme Court points to the underlying corrosive nature of the discussion. Its hard to identify many other examples in which the government is allowed to restrict access to something that is demonstrably medically safe, and in many cases required to protect a persons physical and/or emotional health.

Whats at stake isnt just a right to choose, but all of our rights to determine for ourselves how to engage in our own faiths and to lead our best lives.

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Banning abortion would attack our religious freedom as Jews J. - The Jewish News of Northern California

Browse > Home / News / Knesset session discusses mounting wave of anti-Jewish violence in Israel

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Members of Knesset and representatives of several Israeli organizations convened in the Knesset on Wednesday to discuss the violence, incitement and racketeering by Arabs against Jews in the Negev, the Galilee, Jerusalem and the mixed cities, during which they warned of a growing trend of nationalistic violence against the Jewish state.

Against the background of the growing wave of terrorist attacks, in Jerusalem in the Negev and the Galilee, and the growing violence in cities with a mixed Jewish-Arab population, the Knesset convened a session on the issue of Arab violence against Jews throughout the country.

The conference was held in response to a similar conference held at the Knesset last week to discuss alleged settlers violence against Arabs.

Findings of the growing violence were presented, as well as the polices treatment of the perpetrators.

The civil society organizations of Regavim, the Movement for Governance and Democracy, Honenu, the Negev Rescue Committee, BTselem, My Israel, Im Tirzu, Ad Kan, the Families from Mixed Cities presented their data.

Journalists from a number of media outlets who covered the incidents of violence presented their personal stories about the coverage and life in the locations involved.

MK Bezalel Smotrich, chairman of the Religious Zionism party and one of the initiators of the event, stated that the violence by Israeli Arabs in recent months against Jews that escalated in quantity and quality throughout the country can no longer be ignored.

The roots of this violence are nationalistic and the attempts to obscure it and look for other reasons are dangerous and will not allow terrorism and violence to be eradicated, he warned.

He explained that Israeli Arabs are dualists, citizens on the one hand and having an enemy national identity on the other. This reality is a democratic challenge and dealing with it lies in the plane of consciousness and the recognition of reality.

Unfortunately this government, which relies on anti-Zionist terrorists in the Islamic Movement [Raam party], breathes new life into the sails of violence and terrorism and is busy blurring and sweeping [the events] under the rug, he said.

MK Shlomo Karhi, of the Likud party, said that the one who put the Muslim Brotherhood as the actual leadership of the Israeli government is responsible for this situation, meaning the Yemina party led by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.

It is written [in the Talmud] that without the fear of the kingdom, man shall swallow each other alive. But there is no fear. There is no law or judge, he noted.

He said the police of have no motivation to make an effort to bring rioters to justice because the courts are bringing them back stronger and more heroic to the streets. This system needs root canal treatment.

The only answer to these riots, to the murder of the Jews by our Arabs is in their language: Nakba [catastrophe in Arabic]. Anyone who incites against the State of Israel in mosques, who acts violently against Jews out of nationalist motives and against the State of Israel, should be sentenced and severely punished, as well as denied his citizenship, he demanded.

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Knesset session discusses mounting wave of anti-Jewish violence in Israel - J-Wire Jewish Australian News Service

PODCAST Hello Colorado Rapids fans. This week on Holding The High Line, we discuss all the press releases. First Rabbi and Red discuss MLS Cup (and dance on RSLs grave). Then we recap so much news including but not limited to: The end of season contract decisions, ongoing contract negotiations, Rapids 2, the Max Alves report, and MLS Next Pro.

We also predict Colorados MLS Expansion Draft protected list and who they could lose.

Holding The High Line is an independent soccer podcast focused on the Colorado Rapids of MLS and a member of the Beautiful Game Network. If you like the show, please consider subscribing to us on your preferred podcatcher, giving us a review, and tell other Rapids fans about us. It helps a ton. Visit bgn.fm for a bunch of other great podcasts covering soccer in North America.

We also have anewsletter. Visit ourSubstack pageto read our content and sign up for our newsletter via email.

Find us on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Blubrry, and many other podcatchers. See the full list of podcatchers with subscription links here. For full transcripts of every episode, check out our AudioBurst page. Our artwork was produced by CR54 Designs. Juanners does our music.

We are brought to you by Ruffneck Scarves and Icarus FC. Ruffneckscarves.com is your one-stop-shop for official MLS, USL, and U.S. Soccer scarves as well as custom scarves for your group or rec league team. Icarusfc.com is the place to go for high-quality custom soccer kits for your team or group. With an any design you want, seriously motto, they are breaking the mold of boring, expensive, template kits from the big brands.

Have your team looking fly in 2020 like Andre Shinyashiki with bleached hair with custom scarves and kits from Ruffneck Scarves and Icarus FC.

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We have partnered up with the Denver Post to sustainably grow soccer journalism in Colorado. Listeners can get a three month trial of the Denver Post digital for 99/month. Go to denverpost.com/hthl to sign up. This will give you unlimited and full access to all of the Posts online content and will support local coverage of the Rapids. Each month after the trial is $11.99/month. There is a sports-content-only option for $6.99/month.

Follow us on Twitter @rapids96podcast. You can also email the show at [emailprotected]. Follow our hosts individually on Twitter @LWOSMattPollard and @soccer_rabbi. Send us questions using the hashtag #AskHTHL.

Matt Pollard is the Site Manager for Last Word on Soccer and an engineer by day. A Colorado Convert, he started covering the Colorado Rapids as a credentialed member of the press in 2016, though hes watched MLS since 96. When hes not watching or writing about soccer, hes being an outdoorsman (mostly skiing and hiking) in this beautiful state or trying a new beer. For some reason, he thought that starting a podcast with Mark was a good idea and he cant figure out how to stop this madness. He also hosts Last Word SC Radio.

Mark Goodman, the artist formally known as Rapids Rabbi, moved to Colorado in 2011. Shortly thereafter he went to Dicks Sporting Goods Park, saw Lee Nguyen dribble a ball with the silky smoothness of liquid chocolate cascading into a Bar Mitzvah fountain, and promptly fell head over heels in love with domestic soccer. When not watching soccer or coaching his sons U-8 team, hes generally studying either Talmud or medieval biblical exegesis. Which explains why he watches so much MLS, probably. Having relocated to Pittsburgh in 2019, he covers the Pittsburgh Riverhounds of the USL for Pittsburgh Soccer Now.

Photo Credit: Mark Shaiken, Last Word on Soccer.

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Colorado Rapids Podcast: Max Alves and all the news - Last Word on Soccer