Germany’s Jews and Muslims will not be punished for breaking the law if they carry out circumcisions on young boys, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman said.
Jewish religious leaders will hold an international meeting in Berlin on Tuesday to discuss how to respond to a German court ruling against performing circumcision on baby boys, which also sparked protests from Muslims and Christians in Germany.
The Dutch Senate has delayed its vote on banning ritual slaughter and will appoint a commission to study putting new standards for such slaughter into place.
Animal rights or Jewish rites? That is the question this week before the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of the Dutch parliament, as it considers a bill that effectively would prohibit shechitah, the Jewish ritual slaughter of animals.
The U\’netaneh Tokef prayer says: On Rosh Hashanah it is inscribed, and on Yom Kippur it is sealed: Who shall live and who shall die, who shall perish by water and who by fire, who by famine and who by thirst . God\’s got it on His iPhone, of course.
Within the calendar that constitutes the Jewish cathedral in time, no days are more saturated with the experience of human nature, and with experiments in human change, than the Days of Awe. This is when we are asked, paradoxically, both to steep in our powerlessness to escape our species\’ fate, and yet also to try out behaviors that can rescue us from our destinies.
On paper, the Rosh Hashanah ritual of Tashlich is about doffing one\’s sins to start the new year with a clean slate. For Jason Mauro, 16, it\’s also about beach football
If you are offended either by the idea of cremation or humor about the dead, you may want to stop reading. It\’s OK.
Tisha B\’Av — the ninth day of the month of Av — is a day of fasting and mourning to commemorate some of the greatest tragedies to befall the Jewish people, among them the destruction of both Holy Temples in Jerusalem and the expulsion from Spain in 1492
Writing your own kinah, or dirge, could help forge a more intimate connection with Tisha B\’Av, the fast day that commemorates a series of tragic events in Jewish history
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