Jews in Belgium have been feeling less and less welcome in their home country, as the ritual slaughter ban which prohibits shechita, imperative to the making of kosher meat, has been upheld by the highest court in the country. While the law from 2017 makes the creation of kosher (and halal) meat illegal in the […]
Police are actively searching for a person who was seen dousing gasoline on the Yeshivah of Flatbush Joel Braverman High School building last night. The gas fueled a fire set by the arsonist, who was seen pouring gas on a fenced-off area. The suspect lit the fire before fleeing the school campus. While the fire, […]
The secular Jewish former editor in chief of the New Republic, Martin Peretz, wrote a favorable review of Dara Horn’s new book “People Love Dead Jews” in the Wall Street Journal. However, his depiction of Orthodox Jews in the review was so unfavorable, that the WSJ has published two poignant responses to his ironic othering […]
For most of elementary school, I was the only Jewish girl in a class of over eighty kids. There were a couple of Jewish boys. While I was secular during my childhood, everyone in school knew I was a Jew. A neighbor called me a “Jewish jerk” and made guttural noises one day to explain that […]
A 13-year-old Orthodox Jewish girl was attacked as she was getting off of her school bus in University Heights, Cleveland, Ohio last week. Witnesses say that a woman in a dark-colored SUV or pickup truck threw a beer bottle at the girl and shouted anti-semitic slurs at her. The middle-aged female perpetrator was wearing a […]
Last week, a Sephardic member of our shul (synagogue) asked me which Middle Eastern country my family comes from. “None,” I explained, “We’re Ashkanazi.” “Really?” he exclaimed, “I was certain you were Sephardic.” After this encounter, I got to thinking: despite being completely Ashkanazi, with both sides of my family hailing from Ukraine, Russia and […]
