I grew up in a Hasidic home in the Har Nof neighborhood of Jerusalem and studied in Hasidic yeshivas until I got married. Because soldiers are considered heroes in Israel, most Israeli children, even haredim, dream of joining the IDF. I never believed that my dream would come true, though, until the day I met a Hasidic […]

Dear Jew in the City- On a recent trip to China I saw Shaolin Monks do all sorts of incredible feats – breaking wood and stone on their bodies and lying on swords. I was told that they do this with chi. Is there a Jewish idea of this? Did the Hasidic masters or other […]

Israel’s Ultra-Orthodox Parties Embrace Technology and Emerge Stronger The ultra-Orthodox parties made efforts during the campaign to appeal to younger Jews. United Torah Judaism created a Facebook page; Shas did the same with a Telegram account. Octogenarian and nonagenarian sages helped, traveling around the country by minibus and helicopter to attend mass rallies. A Hilarious, […]

Two-thirds of the world either doesn’t know that the Holocaust happened—or they deny that it did. The Jewish community has invested tremendous resources to spread awareness and education about the Holocaust, in order to prevent another one, but it doesn’t seem to be working. Additionally, 41% of Americans don’t know what Auschwitz is and 56% of Austrians don’t […]

Am Yisroel Chai. These are the infamous words uttered by my heroic uncle, Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, rabbi of Chabad at Poway in San Diego, California. With his bleeding hands, he screamed these words to his community. With his incredible courage, he shouted out loud that we, the Jewish people, will not be stopped. We won’t […]

Exactly six months to the day after congregants at Tree of Life, a Conservative Synagogue, were gunned down by a White Supremacist, another of his ilk, on the other end of the country, showed up at a Chabad House, an Orthodox Shul, with the same intent: to kill as many Jews as possible. As the […]