I was raised in an extreme religious environment that stressed fear and punishment over love and joy. Anti-Semitism was taught as a rebuke from a vengeful God. And it’s followed me everywhere. Because of this negative messaging, my relationship with Judaism was fraught from a young age. By early adulthood, I found myself drifting away. […]
While there is undoubtedly a stark divide between the secular and Haredi world – especially in Israel – sometimes friendship and a shared vision can close the gap. On the surface, Yael Leibovitz and Chani Zusman, two Israeli Jewish women could not be more different. Zisman is an Israeli-born Haredi mother of four who has always […]
In Orthodox Dating Scene, Matchmakers Go Digital A newly-launched program called OU-JLIConnections is a partnership between the Orthodox Union’s Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus and the popular Orthodox dating site SawYouAtSinai, which relies mostly on matchmakers browsing online dating profiles. OU-JLIConnections uses campus Jewish educators who know the students as matchmakers rather than SawYouAtSinai’s randomly […]
Zev Fisher: Young, Hasidic, and Entrepreneur Zev Fisher is different than any other young, single guy living in the Hasidic community in Montreal. Sure, like all his friends his age he likes to have a good time and hang out. But unlike his friends, this 21-year-old man has a business to run. He is the […]
Menachem Bombach may be the first person to have grown up in Meah Shearim and gone viral. A video of the midrasha he founded, the Hasidic Midrasha Torah Academy, featuring hasidic students hiking and learning math and science was shared by Israeli politician Dov Lipman a couple months ago and was an instant internet hit. Both the […]
“Almost every first meeting, with people that don’t know me, I get the feeling that they are skeptical, but after 5 minutes I know that they are fully with me and the Haredi subject dissolves.”
