I grew up in an anti-zionist Hasidic community in NYC. I studied in an anti-Zionist cheder (boys school) and yeshiva until I got married at the age of 20. Fast forward to today, I still live and raise my family in a predominantly anti-Zionist Hasidic community. Like in all other Jewish communities, our community has many […]

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 […]

You’ve heard of The Three Tenors, but have you heard of The Three Cantors? Yanky Lemmer, one of the three, was born and bred in Borough Park as a Belzer Hasid. After yeshiva, Lemmer went to Israel and was paired with a kollel student to learn for an hour a day. Lemmer’s chavrusa, Elimelech, invited him […]

Hey JITC- Why do Orthodox Jewish men have sidecurls? Thanks, Ivan Dear Ivan- Thanks for your question. Those sidecurls are called “peiyot” in Hebrew, meaning corners. This is commonly Yiddishized as “peiyes” and is usually rendered in English in a variety of less-phonetically-accurate spellings, including “payes” and “peyot.” (By the way, the common English-language term […]

The Israeli Tech Guru Who Helps Start-ups Without Asking Anything in Return Hillel Fuld is a “macher,” which is Yiddish for “a man who arranges, fixes and makes connections,” and therefore knows almost everyone in Israeli hi-tech. Fuld is an axle, among many others, in the Israeli wheel known as the “Start-up Nation” – home […]

Seal From First Temple Period Found at Kotel Supports Biblical Accounts A rare, well-preserved piece of clay dating to the First Temple period with the Hebrew inscription “governor of the city” was recently discovered during excavations by the Israel Antiquities Authority in the Western Wall Plaza in Jerusalem. “This shows that already 2,700 years ago, […]