On Sunday, Israel’s Cabinet is set to advance a controversial bill that if passed by the Knesset would enshrine into law Israel’s status as a Jewish state.
The 1999 memo of Susannah Heschel that ended up with President Bill Clinton’s domestic policy advisor, Ruby Shamir, excusing the President’s affair with Monica Lewinsky as not being adulterous by virtue of “classical Jewish law” is bizarre.
University of California, Berkeley institute focused on Jewish law and Israel received a $2.85 million grant from four Bay Area Jewish foundations.
Recently, a young woman who had suffered a miscarriage called Shoshana Samuels, who is a yoetzet halacha, a trained adviser in the Jewish laws of family purity. Samuels was able to answer the woman’s halachic (Jewish legal) questions about the bleeding following a miscarriage, but she had some questions for the woman.
Although the Orthodox community is committed to the existing ketubah document, whose language comes from the Mishnah, Blau said he has no problem with a bride and a groom making additional agreements and commitments, as long as they do not controvert Jewish law.
This season, several new haggadahs raise new questions. New interpretations bring new approaches to the seder, enabling readers and participants to bring new layers of meaning to their own celebrations of the holiday.
Parshat Terumah (Exodus 25:1-27:19)
Were contributions toward the building of the Tabernacle voluntary or compulsory? Those of us who have stood before our communities during a building campaign have always tended to favor the latter option, as this makes for a more effective appeal. But the classical commentaries on the Torah — presumably more objective in their approach to the question — are rather evenly divided on it.
In his magnum opus on the history and development of Jewish civil law, \”Ha-Mishpat Ha-Ivri\” (\”Jewish Law\”), Israeli Supreme Court Justice Menachem Elon remarks that basing a viable modern legal system on Jewish Law is no easy task — \”it calls for great intellectual effort, creativity and boldness.\”
While the questions associated with incorporating Jewish civil law into Israel\’s legal system are complex and beyond the scope of this column, I do wish to pose one modest question: Is it possible, in select instances, for the principles and spirit of Mishpat Ivri to serve as a quasi-legal and moral guide on certain matters of Israeli policy?
On Dec. 19, 2007, the U.S. Attorney General\’s Office filed an indictment in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California naming the Chasidic yeshiva and four other Spinka organizations, as well as eight people, in a multimillion dollar tax fraud and money-laundering ring that stretched from Brooklyn to Los Angeles to Israel and elsewhere.
I opened my mailbox to find several letters, a few bills and a host of requests for donations from various organizations that I have supported over the years. Because I am a stickler for organization, I sort the letters, place the bills in a folder marked \”Look at me soon!\” and the appeals for donations in one marked \”Save the World.\” Between the needs of my local community, the Jewish community, our country and the world at large, I am seriously thinking about renting a storage unit for the hundreds of requests I receive annually.
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