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Activists from the Rosh Yehudi organization set up a 'mechitzah' divider made of Israeli flags ahead of a public prayer event in Dizengoff Square, Tel Aviv, on Yom Kippur eve. September 24, 2023. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash 90)

Tel Aviv won’t change nor should it

Israelis are being pulled in two dramatically different directions, one devoutly Orthodox and the other passionately secular

(courtesy)

The Book of Kohelet and a cup of joy

Sure, Ecclesiastes pitches existential dread, but its clusters of optimism remind us that there’s a time for everything, even coffee

(courtesy, screenshot, used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)

Strong back, soft heart: Yom Kippur 5784

No matter how you feel, disrupting prayer services is not OK, nor is attacking property or antagonizing people to tears

Chairman of Yad Vashem Dani Dayan at the memorial ceremony in the Ponary forest, remembering the over 200,000 Lithuanian Jews brutally murdered during the Holocaust, at this very site. (X, formerly Twitter, used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)

Daring Dani Dayan and the complicity of Lithuanians in the Holocaust

The locals may never own what they did, but Yad Vashem’s chairman spoke truth to power, calling out their role in eliminating a vibrant Jewish world

We need more Azoulays

There’s a surprising resource that can help alleviate the kind of clashes we saw on Yom Kippur: Halacha – Jewish law

Ethnic Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh comfort a young woman upon arriving to Kornidzor in Syunik region, Armenia, Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2023. Some 42,500 people, or about 35% of Nagorno-Karabakh's ethnic Armenian population, had left for neighboring Armenia as of Wednesday morning, according to Armenian authorities. Hours-long traffic jams were reported on Tuesday on the road linking Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. (AP Photo/Vasily Krestyaninov)

Avidan Freedman

This kosher certificate for Azerbaijan is treif

Those rabbis who voiced support for a regime using starvation as a weapon of war have desecrated Jewish values

Jews pray while activists protest against gender segregation in the public space during a public prayer on Dizengoff Square in Tel Aviv, on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, and the holiest of Jewish holidays, September 25, 2023. (Itai Ron/Flash90)

Shlomit Ravitsky Tur-Paz

Tel Aviv’s Yom Kippur struggle could have been avoided

Instead, it highlighted the harm this government is wreaking, not just on Israel’s democracy, but on its Jewish character

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Sep 30, 2023, 3:56 PM

Forgetting instead of remembering?

I really do not know which is worse? There are no remedies! As my granddaughter Ella the paramedic who lives in England, would say "It is what it is!" The Yom Kippur War. Why is this war different from...

Fred Shahrabani

Sep 30, 2023, 3:51 PM

The Battle for Judaism’s Soul on Tel Aviv Streets

I grew up in a traditional household in Tehran, Iran, where my parents frequented the Orthodox Iraqi Jewish synagogue, Ettefagh, in the Laleh Park district of Tehran. Men occupied the main floor for prayers, while women sat in the...

Caroline G. Harris

Sep 30, 2023, 3:33 PM

Cease Fire! A Memory of the Yom Kippur War

The prosthetics ward of Tel HaShomer Hospital was in a lightweight Quonset hut. During the cease fire, twenty beds lined the walls, each filled with a young man who had lost a limb during the Yom Kippur War. My kibbutznik...

Frederick L. Klein

Sep 30, 2023, 12:51 AM

Sukkot: Opening our Eyes to Blessing and Responding in Joy

One of my favorite Chasidic folk tales is the story of the house that is too small. A tiny room, the parents can no longer stand the six children running around making a ruckus. Sleepless and exhausted, they are...

Carolyn Glazier Litwin

Sep 30, 2023, 12:51 AM

Photo supplied by the author

for Etta Abrams Glazier (1902-1991) Apron—I can hear your voice written in your penciled script on the envelope I saved for many years, tucked under lace-edged handkerchiefs in my dresser drawer. Apron—a single word —told me I would find folded-tissue patterns for the florals, prints, and plaids, fashion-fresh...

Sep 29, 2023, 6:28 PM

How a Jew shot to posthumous fame in Tunisia

He lived in an obscure suburb of the French town of Besançon, spending his meager busker's earnings on food for his pet cats and dogs. Since he died in 2013, no one has combed through the shambles he left...

Sep 29, 2023, 6:17 PM

The Public Prayer At Habima Square

Last Saturday, the day before Yom Kippur eve, I attended the demonstration in Jerusalem in front of the President’s Residence. It was a respectful and welcoming demonstration of pluralism, with participants including both religious and non-religious individuals from various...

Simcha Feuerman

Sep 29, 2023, 6:16 PM

Spiritual Food and Marrying Up Kiddushin 47-49

47 Spiritual Food This daf continues the halakhic discussion of betrothal using money forgiven from a loan. As we explained on Daf 46, a woman cannot be betrothed by allowing her to keep money she had previously borrowed. This is because...

William Hamilton

Sep 29, 2023, 6:07 PM

Emotion and Motion

Let’s say you come to two different lines in the Post Office. One is moving quickly but is longer. The other is shorter but moving a lot slower. They will both take the exact same time for you to...

Sheldon Kirshner

Sep 29, 2023, 6:05 PM

Ordinary German Men Murdered Jews During Holocaust

Four million Jews were murdered in German extermination camps or succumbed to hunger and disease in Nazi ghettos during the Holocaust. A further two million Jews were killed by German firing squads, mainly in the Soviet Union and Poland. The...

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