Around Shavuot, my children come home from school with projects about the Jewish people accepting the Torah. Holding their sweet drawings, I am transported beyond the mundane routine of my life to my own unexpected decision many years ago to accept the Torah. Raised in a nice Midwestern non-Jewish household, I regularly attended church and […]

I didn’t get the top IDF training. I haven’t jumped out of planes, steered wartime ships or detonated drones. But, I feel like I’ve been through a battle of my own, and I’ve lived to tell the heroic tale. I fought in the battle for Danny and Kylie, a jaded ex-Orthodox Jew and a hopeful […]

With all eyes on Pyeongchang and the 2018 Winter Olympics, a worldwide interest in K-Pop, Korean television dramas and Kimchi is booming. Korean pride is nothing new to Chana Bilek, an Orthodox Jew from South Korea, with equal pride in the cultures she calls her own. “I was born in Korea. When I was just […]

Thirsty for Wisdom of the Body, Finding It in Dance Rabbi Hanania Schwartz and Yuval Azoulay covered their heads with yarmulkes and mumbled a blessing before sipping from their water bottles. Then, yarmulkes off, they began to perform a short dance. The excerpt is from “Heroes,” which was performed at the JCC Manhattan when the […]

Young Ultra-Orthodox in Israel Increasingly Prioritizing Career, Education Over Marriage, Family According to figures obtained by Haaretz from the upcoming statistical report on ultra-Orthodox society for 2017 (published jointly by the Israel Democracy Institute and the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies), the Haredi community has undergone a dramatic shift in marriage patterns over the last […]