ARZA

by Rabbi Ira Youdavin My plane landed at  Ben Gurion Airport last Wednesday evening, four days before I would be joining the Jewish Council for Public Affairs National Leadership Mission, and 72 hours before the first night of Hanukkah. The early arrival was different from my usual pattern. Normally, I speed from the airport to [...]

Michtav M’Yerushalyim November 19th, 2012 Dear friends and family members, We begin with a word of thanks to the incredible number of you who have called and/or written – to express solidarity with Israel as well as your concern for our personal well-being.  This ‘connectedness’ means the world to us. We will in particular forever [...]

From a letter home: I’m back in Tel Aviv, on a break in between classes. I spent the weekend up north with our family friends to escape the potential threat of rockets in Tel Aviv. I thought I would find some quiet there, but Timrat is located near an air force base so you could [...]

Last week, Anat Hoffman, leader of Women of the Wall and Executive Director of the Israel Religious Action Center was arrested at the Western Wall. Anat was praying with more than 200 women when she was taken into custody for wearing a tallit and disturbing public order by praying out loud. Her arrest and the [...]

This coming school year, the IMPJ has secured the opening of more new preschools. After the success of last year’s preschools in Even Yehuda, and the controversial neighborhood of Kiryat HaYovel in Jerusalem, four new classes will open this year – three in Jerusalem and one in Holon.

By Sarah Allen I just came back from Mt. Scopus for the annual ceremony marking the bombing of the Frank Sinatra cafeteria at Hebrew University. When I was working at Hillel, I went almost every year.  How could I not?  It happened right outside my window– the bombing and the ceremony.  Every year is significant, [...]

Can it be that only men were at Sinai? When we read the Asseret HaDibrot this Shavuot, do they apply only to men? Is there some proof that the brain power or the moral worth of a woman is less than a man? The answer to all of these questions is a resounding no.

By Rabbi Stacey Blank A couple of days ago, I boarded the #56 bus in Ramat Shlomo – the first neighborhood in Jerusalem (really more like a close suburb) that was planned solely for Ultra-Orthodox residents – as part of the “Freedom Riders” initiative of the Reform Movement’s Israel Religious Action Center.  We were riding [...]

The News behind the News:  How did Rabbi Alona Lisitsa, a Reform Female Rabbi, become seated on the Religious Council of Mevasseret outside of Jerusalem? Hopefully you will have all learned by now that Rabbi Lisitsa has been named and seated on the Religious Council of Mevasseret, a suburb of Jerusalem.  By all reports, she [...]

By Rabbi Levi Weiman-Kelman Before we are overwhelmed by Passover preparations, I wanted to share a description of a unique Purim celebration here in Jerusalem. We have been struggling with increasing attempts of the Ultra-Orthodox to ban women from the public sphere (ha-adarat nashim in Hebrew).  Women members of Kol HaNeshama helped organize a women’s [...]