I grew up in an anti-zionist Hasidic community in NYC. I studied in an anti-Zionist cheder (boys school) and yeshiva until I got married at the age of 20. Fast forward to today, I still live and raise my family in a predominantly anti-Zionist Hasidic community. Like in all other Jewish communities, our community has many […]

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 […]

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 […]

Reading the news can be depressing, but for every negative story about the Chasidic community, there is an uplifting one to be found. I feel fortunate that mine is among the positive. Born in Netanya, my family was close to the previous Klausenberger Rebbe, as well as connected to the Bostoner Rebbe. Later on, my […]

You’ve heard the term “modern Orthodox,” but have you ever heard of “modern chasidic,” also known as heimish? At Jew in the City, we love to show the nuances in the Orthodox Jewish world that many people are completely unaware of. In some cases, this lack of understanding even exists between one Orthodox community and […]