Tag Archives: Ultra-Orthodoxy

“Religious Freedom”

Via The New York Post: Two children are dead, more are injured — yet a group of ultra-Orthodox rabbis say they plan to defy a health order in the name of religious freedom. Less than a year after a Brooklyn … Continue reading

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Hikikomori, Again

Via the Washington Post: JERUSALEM — It’s the latest prescription for extreme ultra-Orthodox Jewish men who shun contact with the opposite sex: Glasses that blur their vision, so they don’t have to see women they consider to be immodestly dressed. … Continue reading

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Balkanization Watch

Via the New York Post: Brooklyn has lost its right to bare arms. Ultra-Orthodox Jewish business owners are lashing out at customers at dozens of stores in Williamsburg, trying to ban sleeveless tops and plunging necklines from their aisles. It’s … Continue reading

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A Question of Identity (ctd)

More on this story (from the Guardian): Proposals to draft ultra-Orthodox men into the Israeli army, ending an exemption that has lasted for 64 years, are bitterly dividing prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s coalition government ahead of a crucial debate on … Continue reading

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A Question of Identity

I’m no fan of conscription, to put it mildly, but, if a state is going to insist on it, it should do so fairly.That does not appear to be the case in Israel, where the ability of the ultra-orthodox to … Continue reading

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Hikikomori, Again

Via the Forward: “Dear Jew: You are entering a dangerous place. Shield your eyes.” That’s the Hebrew-language text on a huge billboard that an Orthodox group has paid to post alongside a Brooklyn highway. The “dangerous place” is Manhattan. The … Continue reading

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Rage Against The Machinery

Via the Jewish Press: Tens of thousands of Ultra-Orthodox Jews will participate in a huge rally to be held on Sunday evening, May 20, at Citi Field in Queens, New York, to combat the evils of the Internet and the … Continue reading

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Spitting on Children

More grotesque religious fanaticism in the Middle East. AP reports: (AP) BEIT SHEMESH, Israel – A shy 8-year-old schoolgirl has unwittingly found herself on the front line of Israel’s latest religious war. Naama Margolese is a ponytailed, bespectacled second-grader who … Continue reading

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Glimpses of Future Disaster

Demographic projections always have to be treated with a great deal of care, but this (from a piece in the National Interest) still makes disturbing reading: A recent report compiled by Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics makes some projections looking … Continue reading

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Tanya Rosenblit

Via the New Zealand Herald: She had no intention of emulating Rosa Parks when she set out to find a bus to Jerusalem on Friday but by yesterday Tanya Rosenblit had become a defiant symbol around whom a majority of … Continue reading

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