Sunday 21 March, 2010
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THE JEWISH CHRONICLE ONLINE
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Charedi Judaism
Charedi plan to buy Skinners' School
March 18, 2010Hackney's Charedi community is to renew its efforts to buy the old Skinners' School after councillors rejected a home-building plan for the site. The planning sub-committee voted 5-4 against Berkeley Homes' proposal to knock down the school and build luxury homes. The decision was greeted with delight by local Charedim who packed the public gallery. Members of the Belz, Satmar and Lubavitch communities maintain that the site should remain in educational use.Getting Charedim to work
March 11, 2010The large buildings and symmetrical streets in Modiin Illit are a world away from the crowded flats found in other Charedi neighbourhoods in Jerusalem and Bnei Brak. And according to new figures, the environment is directly contributing to a growing enthusiasm for work. Israel's fast-growing Charedi community is traditionally characterised by low employment, high poverty and dependence on charity and benefits. How to change this has become a perennial question of Israeli politics.
Couple fined for son's circumcision by British rabbi
February 25, 2010A Finnish couple who employed a British rabbi to circumcise their son must pay their child 1,500 Euros in damages after a Helsinki court found them guilty of conspiracy to commit bodily harm. Moshe and Miriam Levi, members of Helsinki Community Synagogue, asked Chabad of Finland, to organise the circumcision for their son Aviv, their first child. Dan Kantor, executive director of the Jewish community of Helsinki, said the couple were strictly Orthodox and did not want to use the mohel of the Helsinki shul, or a mohel from Sweden.
£3.5m to convert pub to Bobov community centre
January 28, 2010A strictly Orthodox community which hopes to turn a former pub into a centre for social and religious activities is aiming to raise £3.5million to complete the project. Work is yet to begin on the conversion of The Swan more than a year after the building was bought by Stamford Hill’s Bobov community and four months after planning permission was granted by Hackney Council.Orthodox marriages are 'happier', US survey shows
January 21, 2010Orthodox marriages are happier than the average American marriage, according to a new survey. The Aleinu Marriage Satisfaction Survey, conducted by the Orthodox Union, found that 72 per cent of Orthodox Jewish men and 74 per cent of Orthodox Jewish women rated their marriage as excellent or very good. A 2008 General Social Survey found that only 63 per cent of American men and 60 per cent of women are very happy with their marriage.
Orthodox confront Neturei Karta sect
January 21, 2010Police were called to a two-hour stand-off between Neturei Karta followers and a counter-demonstration of Orthodox Jews outside a Manchester hotel on Tuesday night. Around 30 men from the anti-Zionist fringe Chasidic sect held placards decrying Israel and aliyah outside the Fairways Lodge hotel in Prestwich.Rabbi’s Skype exorcism
December 30, 2009A renowned Israeli master of kabbalah, Rabbi Dovid Batzri, has attempted to remove a dybbuk, or disembodied spirit, from a Brazilian man via the internet. A video posted on Charedi website ladaat.net, shows Rabbi Batzri, surrounded by dozens of supporters, reciting kabbalistic verses and praying for the exorcism of the dybbuk. He connected with the possessed man via Skype. According to another Charedi site, kikar.net, the story began when a Brazilian yeshivah student started shouting in shul that he could “smell many sins” and that “the end is very near”.Sex tapes rock the Orthodox
December 23, 2009Recordings of sexually explicit conversations, apparently between a strictly Orthodox rabbi and a woman he was helping convert to Judaism, are rocking the entire Orthodox world. New York Rabbi Leib Tropper resigned earlier this month from the organisation he founded, Eternal Jewish Family (EJF), after posters appeared in Orthodox neighbourhoods of Jerusalem insinuating that he had committed sexual indiscretions.Israeli firms 'refusing to hire Charedim or Arabs'
December 17, 2009Ethiopian Jews, Charedim and Israeli Arabs are being systematically discriminated against in the workplace, even if they hold degrees, according to an influential new report. In the first study of its kind, academics from Kiryat Ono Academic College near Tel Aviv surveyed employers about how graduates from these communities, widely considered Israel’s most disadvantaged, can expect to be received when they try to enter the job market. The respondents included advertising executives, lawyers, bankers and other professionals who employ graduates.Zaka rescues Charedi Londoner's body in Jordan
November 12, 2009The body of a north London Charedi man who died suddenly while on business in Jordan was buried in Israel after the Jordanian authorities were persuaded not to carry out an autopsy. The man, whose family asked for him not to be identified, was in his early 70s from Stamford Hill and believed to be of Sephardi background.
Charedim attempt to block conversion law
March 11, 2010A new law on conversion to Judaism could lead to a full-blown coalition crisis in Israel. The law, presented by Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu, would allow each city's chief rabbi to perform conversions. The Charedi parties are threatening to leave Binyamin Netanyahu's government if the law is passed.
Grandmother's bid to become Sephardi exec
February 25, 2010A London grandmother is bidding to become what is believed to be the first female executive member of Britain's oldest Orthodox synagogue body. Doris Osen is standing for election next month to the mahamad of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews' Congregation, despite reservations from the Sephardi Beth Din as to whether Jewish law permits her to serve on it. Mrs Osen, in her 70s, is descended from two of the families who founded Bevis Marks Synagogue in the City of London in 1701 and has chaired a number of the synagogue's committees down the years.UK 'carrier' blamed for New York mumps outbreak
February 9, 2010An 11-year-old boy is at the centre of a potential mumps epidemic among New York’s strictly Orthodox community because he is believed to have been the carrier of the disease after visiting the UK. More than 300 people, almost all strictly Orthodox, have been diagnosed with mumps in the towns of Monsey and New Square, home to over 7,000 Skverer Chasidim.
Frum Friends storms Israeli primetime
January 21, 2010A bride starts menstruating a few hours before her wedding. How will she get through her wedding day and night, given that Orthodox couples cannot have physical contact when the woman has her period? This may sound like an exam question for rabbinical school but, believe it or not, it is the storyline from the season premiere of Israel’s hottest television programme. When Srugim, dubbed the frum version of Friends, first hit the small screen 18 months ago, the Israeli public was expecting the normal clichéd religious characters and bad jokes.
Hackney council threat to demolish four-storey Charedi home
January 21, 2010A Charedi family is waiting to discover whether their home will be demolished following a long-running dispute with a council. Jacob Dreyfuss, president of Stamford Hill’s Stolin-Karlin synagogue, has appealed to overturn an enforcement notice imposed after he rebuilt his home without planning permission. If he loses, Hackney Council will be legally allowed to have the house knocked down and rebuilt to its original dimensions.
Orthodox blasphemous YouTube outburst shocks community
January 14, 2010Melbourne’s tightly-knit Orthodox community is reeling following the public ostracism of a group of dissident Lubavitchers accused of “a massive and reckless” act of blasphemy. A video posted last week on YouTube shows the group celebrating a seudah, or religious feast, on the Fast of Tevet on December 27, when Orthodox Jews are supposed to mourn the day the First Temple was besieged.Charedi poverty, New York-style
December 30, 2009The shop windows that line Lee Avenue in the Charedi neighbourhood of Williamsburg advertise every aspect of Orthodox life — long black coats, ornate silver menorahs, challahs, prayer books, Jewish-themed toys. So the gleaming white storefront at number 65 is striking for the fact that it advertises nothing; just a neat row of white blinds. Behind the blinds is Williamsburg’s first kosher soup kitchen, the Orenstein-Met Council Masbia Kitchen, which opened last month. “It’s quoted in halachah that the best way to do charity is to go all out,” said Alexander Rapaport.
Charedi sites close following ban
December 23, 2009Two Charedi news websites closed down this week and a wave of resignations has hit other sites following the strictest rabbinical ruling against the internet to date.
Lubavitch reopens debate on messianic beliefs
December 3, 2009A Lubavitch website has reopened a debate over the exclusion of some Chabad rabbis from an Orthodox rabbinical organisation. The Rabbinical Council of America (RCA), which is the main association of Orthodox rabbis in the US, inserted a clause in its membership application some years ago that barred rabbis “with messianic beliefs” from joining the group. The clause refers to the belief among some in the Chabad movement that the last Lubavitcher rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who died in 1994, may one day return as the messiah.
Orthodox life turns around teen terrors
November 5, 2009It began with foul language, lip piercings and under-age drinking, but it led to studying an “ology” and spending more time with the family. Two Hampshire teenagers who lived for a week with a strictly Orthodox family in Israel for a BBC reality show believe the experience changed their lives. Jack Travers, 18, and Gemma Lyons, 17, filmed the episode of World’s Strictest Parents with the Sha-ked family in the gated, religious community of Nof Ayalon, near Modi’in, in May.
