I grew up in a Hasidic home in the Har Nof neighborhood of Jerusalem and studied in Hasidic yeshivas until I got married. Because soldiers are considered heroes in Israel, most Israeli children, even haredim, dream of joining the IDF. I never believed that my dream would come true, though, until the day I met a Hasidic […]

How Orthodox Jewish Nurses Are Fighting ‘Anti-Vaccination Propaganda’ Targeting Their Community Amid the largest measles outbreak in nearly 30 years, and a rise in vaccine hesitancy within the ultra-Orthodox community, Blima Marcus and other members of the Orthodox Jewish Nurses Association decided to do something about it. They have been compiling a book of their […]

Netflix’s ‘Shtisel’ Is Binge-Worthy TV on a Strict Form of Judaism What makes the Israeli series “Shtisel,” such groundbreaking television is that the characters are the black-hatted, side-curled men and bewigged women of ultra-Orthodox Judaism, a group that is known in Hebrew by the umbrella term Haredim and includes Hasidim. It is an insular subculture […]

This week, history was made when lawmakers in Albany finally agreed to loosen New York state’s statute of limitations for molestation survivors, known as the Child Victim Act. This breakthrough came about after a long and arduous battle by child sex abuse survivors and their advocates, going up against a state with one of the […]

Anne Frank House Banned Orthodox Jewish Employee From Wearing His Skullcap at Work A Jewish employee at Anne Frank House could not believe his ears when his bosses banned him from wearing a skullcap at work. Barry Vingerling turned up for work on his first day at the museum in Amsterdam and was told to […]

Learning to Pray When Words Fail Julie Shulman decided to study linguistics because she wanted to help people with speaking disorders. She never imagined how personal this mission would become when her husband, business-development manager Ayal Shulman, suffered a massive brain hemorrhage. Despite the initially grim prognosis, his cognitive function is intact. But his speech […]