Benjamin Porat, at The Blogs

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Jun 7, 2023, 1:55 PM

When all Haredi boys default to yeshiva study, what we lose is excellence

Illustrative. Ultra-Orthodox Jewish men study at the Ponevezh Yeshiva in Bnei Brak on May 11, 2010. (Yaakov Naumi/ Flash90/ File)

With mediocre students packing the study halls, the gifted few have little chance to delve deeply and leave their mark

Mar 3, 2023, 8:53 AM

Making ministry legal advisers political appointees goes against Jewish law

The question of how much power the government should wield was one that generations of halakhic decisors (poskim) worked to curtail. A bill was recently published that would change the role of legal advisers in government ministries (the Basic Law:...

Sep 21, 2022, 7:49 AM

Time for a historic deal on religion and state

Though the State of Israel faces pressing problems in numerous critical areas including defense, foreign affairs, the economy, and government corruption, one of the main issues on which governments rise and fall in Israel is that of religion and...

Jan 9, 2022, 3:55 PM

Israel’s Rabbinate should welcome these kashrut and conversion reforms

Religious Services Minister Matan Kahana (left) and Western Wall Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch attend a ceremony on Hanukkah at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, on November 29, 2021. (Arie Leib Abrams/Flash90)

They do reduce the Rabbinate's centralized power, but in very different ways, which fundamentally upholds the rabbis' authority, rather than undermining it

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About Me

Prof. Benny Porat is a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute and senior lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.