Esteemed Educator Faces Opposition As He Takes Over Hempstead School District An esteemed educator known for fixing failing New York City schools is ready to roll up his sleeves in one of the worst performing school districts on Long Island. Until now, “A Hasidic Jew is not somebody you’re going to find in Hempstead,” […]
In 2013, a Hasidic filmmaker took the world by storm with her critically acclaimed feature length film, Fill the Void. It was distributed by Sony Pictures and premiered at the Venice Film Festival. Its writer-director, Rama Burstein, is a hasidic baalas teshuva, whose newest effort, The Wedding Plan, comes out this weekend (it opens May 12 in […]
Wearing Skirts Over Pants Helps Me Straddle Two Worlds Orthodox young women, many of whom traditionally wear only skirts outside the house as an expression of modesty, increasingly wear pants under those skirts. This gateway between the world of skirts and the world of pants — clothing items that, for some Orthodox Jews (though […]
Read The Groundbreaking Orthodox Film Story That’s Now An Award Finalist The Haredi world is generally viewed as an insular patriarchal community that shuns movies, but a fledgling, shadow film industry has been growing quietly for a decade within the confines of this improbable universe. These flicks — dozens of them — are produced, […]
The Grape Juice Wars of Passover Orthodox Jews bless and drink a cup of wine three times on the Sabbath and four times at each of the two Seders for Passover. The almost 150-year-old American titan of grape juice: Welch’s, whose name is practically a synonym for grape juice, and the 129-year-old Manischewitz, the […]
Hasidic Rapper Melts Faces of Average New Yorkers These guys were skeptical to say the least, but rapper Sammy K threw down some serious flow. They changed their minds immediately. Laugh, For God’s Sake: The Dos and Don’ts of Ultra-Orthodox Stand-up Comedy So what’s the deal with kaparot, anyway? Orthodox Jewish stand-up comics are […]
