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Oct 8, 2026, 3:12 PM

The Haredi Bargain

Reflections on what the Haredim bring to Israel and what they demand in return

Oct 4, 2026, 4:29 PM

Don’t hate! Vote!

How easy it is to get angry at the chareidi (ultra-orthodox) community. I think my anger began years ago when I heard chareidi politicians defending the exemption of yeshiva students while my sons and the sons of all my friends...

Sam Lehman-Wilzig

Oct 2, 2026, 6:53 AM

Bible vs. Talmud: The Irony of Haredi “Torah” Study

The cycle of Torah reading ends and begins again tomorrow on Simkhat Torah (in Israel; on Sunday, overseas). But what exactly is meant by “Torah”? It depends on who you ask. And the (very surprising) answer holds within it...

Sep 18, 2026, 5:18 AM

Israel must challenge rather than engage ‘pro-Palestine’ performance politics

The Macklemore battle presents a trap that pro-Israel activists have yet to escape Two options: Either stay silent as more and more celebrities accuse Israel of genocide in ever more prominent forums, and hope the tide will pass, or wield...

Sep 16, 2026, 10:04 PM

The court left one way to draft haredi men

Against a hundred thousand files, 1,104 men is what the state managed with everything it had. Illustrative image. (Mitzpe Institute)

The High Court struck down the arrest shield on 3 September. Nine justices found the legislative process defective enough to void the statute, and eight of them went further: a law that lifts criminal enforcement off one group while...

Sep 10, 2026, 3:45 PM

The Best Books of 5786

The term People of the Book, which sounds much better in Hebrew, Am HaSefer, is indeed apt. Walk into any Jewish bookstore or browse on Amazon, and new titles arrive daily. 5786 is coming to a close, and the year, like...

Sep 7, 2026, 4:34 AM

Violence is winning

Haredi kids blocked me as I rushed in an ambulance to treat a woman in labor. They endangered her life and violated Jewish law

Sep 6, 2026, 2:46 PM

A Conversation Overheard in a Tel Aviv Café

A Conversation Overheard in a Tel Aviv Café Israel, a Jewish State and a Democracy: I had no intention of listening to their conversation. They were sitting at the next table in a Tel Aviv café, the kind of place where people...

Sep 6, 2026, 2:04 PM

Netanyahu’s false promise of ‘study or serve’

Ultra-Orthodox demonstrators clash with police during a protest against the drafting of Haredi youth near Bnei Brak, June 5, 2025. (Erik Marmor/Flash90)

The latest Haredi draft slogan gives voters exactly what they want to hear without delivering the soldiers Israel needs.

Aug 25, 2026, 3:03 AM

Is This The Kind Of Aliyah We Currently Need?

Jake Turx, senior White House correspondent for Mishpacha magazine, recently proposed on X what he called an “eight-billion-dollar idea”: build a development in Israel tailored to the needs, standards, and lifestyle of American Chareidim, then use it as a...

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