One of the biggest disadvantages I had growing up in an extreme, unhealthy Orthodox Jewish community is that I learned from an early age to view the world as black and white. They’re wrong. We’re right. We follow Torah correctly. They don’t. We’re living the life that God intended when He created the world. They’re […]
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 […]
