Fox NewsA dispute over a cake in Colorado raises a new question about gay rights and religious freedom: If bakers can be fined for refusing to serve married gay couples, can they also be punished for declining to make a cake with anti-gay statements? A baker in suburban Denver who refused to make a cake for a same-sex wedding is fighting a legal order requiring him to serve gay couples even though he argued that would violate his religious beliefs.But now a separate case puts a twist in the debate over discrimination in public businesses,...
Friday, 23 January 2015
Times of IsraelSome 150 religious Jewish women, most of them wives of rabbis affiliated with the Tzohar organization, gathered this week in Holon to talk about sexuality. The event, entitled “Guf Rishon” (First Person) was the first of its kind in Israel. Spearheaded not by the rabbis of Tzohar – which seeks to promote Jewish identity from a religious Zionism standpoint – but their wives, the gathering allowed these Orthodox women to discuss their own sexuality and that of their families in a public, supportive atmosphere. ...
YNET For background see previous post on Yona Weinbergיונה וינברג הורשע בארצות הברית בניצול מיני של קטינים ונידון למאסר. שכניו מתנגדים לכך שיקבל אזרחות ישראלית: "מדובר בפדופיל שהוגדר מסוכן לציבור". עורך דינו: "הוא שילם את חובו לחברה ורוצה לבנות את חייו מחדש"יונה (ג'ייסון) וינברג, יהודי בן 37 עשה באחרונה עלייה לישראל וקבע את מקום מושבו בשכונת הר נוף בירושלים. לכאורה, עוד עולה חדש, אולם שכניו גילו כי מדובר בלא פחות מאדם...
Thursday, 22 January 2015
NY Times The speaker of the New York State Assembly, Sheldon Silver, was arrested on federal corruption charges on Thursday and accused of using the power of his office for more than a decade to secure millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks and then covering up his schemes, according to court documents.Mr. Silver, a Democrat from the Lower East Side of Manhattan who has served as speaker for more than two decades, is accused...
This is testimony from a member of a prominent Viennese family - who unfortunately is afraid (with good cause) to have her identity known. October 11th 2011I write as a woman , mother and friend of Ms. Beth Schlesinger, because it hurts that she is completely alone because of lies being spread about her. However, I post anonymously because I do not want the same thing to happen to me that happened to two other ladies in the Jewish community...
Moshe Ahron has asserted that slavery is immoral and always was so but that we have advanced over our ancestors who were not aware of its immorality. Here is what I mean. The Torah didn't create slavery. Slavery existed before the Torah was given on Har Sinai. The Torah dealt with the situation as it was - slavery already existed. The Torah improved this bad situation by regulating slavery with the goal that slavery would eventually be eradicated. To be clear, slavery was always immoral, but slavery was never the Torah's fault, the...
Wednesday, 21 January 2015
Forward In an apartment in the Austrian capital, Beth Alexander is deleting hundreds of photos of her 5-year-old twin boys from Facebook.In one picture, Benjamin and Samuel are laughing as they hold a toy. In another they are waiting to be served lunch in their native Vienna.The ordinary snapshots are the kind uploaded by countless mothers all over the world. Yet Alexander, a British-born modern Orthodox mother in her 30s, is barred from...
Tuesday, 20 January 2015
JLaw Section OneApart from the bill's flaws with respect to the validity of Gittin, there are three other anti-halachic effects. In the opinion of this writer, these effects are so manifest, so incontrovertible, that it is mystifying that any Orthodox Rabbi, much less any rabbinic institution, can be in favor of it.I. The first basic flaw in the Get Bill is that it is intended to aid in procuring a Get -- even if there...
Monday, 19 January 2015
NY Times TWO months ago, the British Psychological Society released a remarkable document entitled “Understanding Psychosis and Schizophrenia.” Its authors say that hearing voices and feeling paranoid are common experiences, and are often a reaction to trauma, abuse or deprivation: “Calling them symptoms of mental illness, psychosis or schizophrenia is only one way of thinking about them, with advantages and disadvantages.”The report says that there is no strict dividing line between psychosis and normal experience: “Some people...
Saturday, 17 January 2015
LA Times The measles outbreak that began at Disneyland during the holiday season is now spreading beyond people who contracted the disease at the theme park, with those patients now exposing others after returning to their hometowns, health officials said Saturday.There are now 51 confirmed cases of the highly contagious virus across California, three other states and Mexico, and the Orange County Health Care Agency said the reports...
update January 17: Just spoke with someone who discussed with Rav Ahron Schecter his threat to resign from the MoetzesReb Ahron is concerned about a number of issues 1) the dispute in Israel between the followers of Rav Shteinman and Rav Auerbach 2) the fact that certain yeshivos and individuals have been destroyed or messed up as a result of this dispute 3) that it is no longer accepted in Israel that gedolim disagree and that it is legitimate to...
Update: Please read this lenient teshuva. I will be adding others which clearly indicate the complexity of the matter. Contrary to what Rabbi Brackman writes - that it is a clear cut moral issue - Rav Yosef says it is justified for some cases and some times in history - especially when there is a reasonable possibility that she will commit adultery. That is the view of the Tzitz Eliezar also. Other contemporary poskim don't accept the view that the...
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