The Iranian nuclear issue and Palestinian peace talks may be dominating the news about Israel nowadays, but if discussions within the Jewish state focused on any social challenge this year, it was the question of how to integrate the Charedi Orthodox population into Israel’s workforce and military.
A prominent haredi Orthodox rabbi in Israel ordered his followers to burn their iPhones.
The Israel Defense Forces have begun drafting haredi Orthodox 18-year-olds without encountering significant protests, one week after a new law requiring haredi military service took effect.
Charedi Orthodox men in Israel are buying glasses that will prevent them from seeing the immodest women that threaten their way of life.
Thousands of members of a haredi Orthodox sect protested in Jerusalem against a planned universal military service law.
It’s tempting to look at the latest crisis in Israel — over whether the Charedim should serve in the military — as pitting religion against the state. Just look at some of the comments from both sides. On the fervent religious side, Shas spiritual leader Ovadia Yosef has declared a state of emergency. In his weekly sermon on July 7, as reported in Ynet, the rabbi is quoted as saying.
Pressure is growing on the Brooklyn district attorney and the country’s major haredi Orthodox umbrella organization to change the ways they handle allegations of sexual abuse and molestation in the Orthodox community.
In an attempt to better understand the problem that arose as a result of the recent events in Beit Shemesh — the one that succeeded to light a fire under so many people — most of us always return to our comfort zone by declaring that the problem lies in the Jewish religion.
It never occurred to me that I’d have to visit the Los Angeles County Men’s Central Jail to get a deeper understanding of the Charedi crisis in Israel. I call it a crisis because, in my mind, anything that makes the Jewish religion look really bad is a crisis.
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