Dear JITC- What did Rabbi Akiva’s students do wrong? Whatever they did, isn’t killing 24,000 of them a bit much? Thanks, Daria Dear Daria- Thanks for your question. Allow me to flesh it out a bit for the benefit of those who may not have the necessary frame of reference. The sefirah period, which lasts […]
A Boxing Promoter’s Trickiest Move Is Observing the Sabbath Dmitriy Salita, a 37-year-old former welterweight, is the rare Orthodox Jew in big-time boxing and, as such, he observes the Sabbath. From sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, he adheres to the faith’s prohibitions on phones, television or internet, and perhaps most difficult for his line of […]
How An Italian Earthquake in 1570 Created The First Modern Orthodox Jew Azariah de’ Rossi was an entirely unremarkable Italian Jew in his late 50s when the earth shook beneath his feet in the great Ferrara earthquake of November 1570. Narrowly escaping the collapse of his home that Shabbat night, he and his family sought […]
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 […]
I recently tweeted a joke that went viral, and I believe it did because of a deep truth it contains about Jews.
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 […]
