On a recent flight from LA to Israel, my husband and I settled comfortably in our assigned seats near each other, when a seemingly secular fellow approached us. The man claimed that my husband was sitting in this man’s seat, that we had been given it mistakenly by the airline. My husband checked his boarding […]
Reading the news can be depressing, but for every negative story about the Chasidic community, there is an uplifting one to be found. I feel fortunate that mine is among the positive. Born in Netanya, my family was close to the previous Klausenberger Rebbe, as well as connected to the Bostoner Rebbe. Later on, my […]
You’ve heard the term “modern Orthodox,” but have you ever heard of “modern chasidic,” also known as heimish? At Jew in the City, we love to show the nuances in the Orthodox Jewish world that many people are completely unaware of. In some cases, this lack of understanding even exists between one Orthodox community and […]
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. […]
Too often, Hasidic Jews are depicted in the media as two-dimensional characters, lacking humanity, nuance, or individuality. Here’s a glimpse of a side you may not have seen. See more out-of-the-box Hasidim here.
