Free Republic

Once again the double standard is blatant. Critics of Islam are treated as bigots. A heroine like Ayaan Hirsi Ali who faced death threats for criticizing Islam won't be getting an award, but Rebecca Newberger Goldstein will. Ali is denounced as a bigot, booted off campuses and smeared in the press. Rebecca Newberger Goldstein receives the uncritical acclaim reserved for those who promote the unthinking prejudices of the left. Ayaan Hirsi Ali writes about Islam, which may not be criticized. Rebecca Newberger Goldstein writes about Orthodox Judaism, which like the more religious forms of Christianity, is an optimal target. Obviously...

Reading two recent breathless headlines in the Forward, it would seem that Judaism, at least as practiced in America, is somehow in mortal danger of being co-opted and radically changed by Orthodox Jewry.

Wearing black hats or donning small yarmulkes, Orthodox Jews represent a distinct subgroup within the Jewish community — more observant, more conservative and more insular

Iranian FM Zarif says that Netanyahu's position reflects "bigotry" over facts. WASHINGTON – Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says that his country has saved the Jewish people three times in history, and does not seek their annihilation. In an interview with NBC News, Zarif rejected characterizations to the contrary put forth by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week in an address to a joint meeting of the US Congress. “Today the Jewish people face another attempt by yet another Persian potentate to destroy us,” Netanyahu said on the eve of Purim, commemorating the salvation of Iran’s Jews under threats...

“Welcome! Come in,” said a strong, Middle-East accented voice, as I hesitated at the door.

Ben Nash, chief executive of PCS Wireless, is the man behind a mystery $250,000 donation to a super PAC supporting Sen. Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign, according to the New York Times. Nash donated $250,000 to Stand for Principle PAC in January through “V3 231 LLC,” a company registered in New York. Nash donated to Cruz because “he has been a strong supporter of Jewish issues,” company spokesman Robert Barletta told the Times. Nash, a former student of Jewish religious texts at Yeshiva, co-founded PCS Wireless in 2001 as a teenager.The company became a major global distributor of new and used...

The way to deal with right-wing activists like Bentzi Gopshtain, according to radical leftist Nissan Schorr, is to attack him with a baseball bat. In fact, doing so is “my dream,” he wrote in left-wing paper Haaretz Wednesday.

Audiences watching The Lost Key will not likely be surprised to see a bearded, traditional Orthodox rabbi telling them that missionary-style with a man on top, a woman on the bottom, in near total darkness within the confines of marriage, is the “right” way to have sex.

If a community’s respected religious leaders preach, over and over again, that gay people deserve to be killed, isn’t it inevitable that someone will try to kill them?

A few years ago "Rabbi" Eric Yoffie, a Reform clergyman spoke at an Islamic Society of North America convention, an anti-Semitic Muslim Brotherhood organization that supported Hamas, and denounced Dennis Prager for criticizing the Koran. At ISNA, Eric Yoffie sanctimoniously warned that... There exists in this country among all Americans — whether Jews, Christians, or non-believers — a huge and profound ignorance about Islam. It is not that stories about Islam are missing from our media; there is no shortage of voices prepared to tell us that fanaticism and intolerance are fundamental to Islamic religion, and that violence and...

I am alabaster in beauty ; the pearl in your crown , The voice of wisdom ; my words never fall to the ground , My majesty surrounds you for my heart you obey , My kingdom goes before you each and every day , There is no other that you serve , Your feet remain steady ; they never swerve , My heart is the path you joyfully anticipate , I AM your inheritance you pant for yet never need to wait , I AM your Shepherd ; your gateway , the pool of mercy you know , My...

New film, ‘Rosenwald,’ tells story of philanthropist Julius Rosenwald who transformed black lives, including those of writer Langston Hughes and opera singer Marion Anderson.PHILADELPHIA (JTA) — Alex Bethea, the son of cotton and tobacco farm workers, was in sixth grade in 1965 when his family moved from Dillon, South Carolina, to the tiny town of Fairmont, North Carolina, where he attended a school called Rosenwald. But it wasn’t until this week, 50 years later, that Bethea learned that his school was named for Julius Rosenwald, the Jewish philanthropist who is the subject of a new documentary by Aviva Kempner. The...

My readers know that I, as an expatriate American, am primarily concerned with how any prospective president views the Jewish state. There are many candidates running for the US presidency from both parties, all of whom have opinions about Israel and its relationship with America. In my last column I reviewed the Democratic contenders. Now it’s the Republicans’ turn. The strong support of every American president is vital for Israel, but the relationship is not one-sided. Israel is America’s most stalwart ally in the region, sharing its democratic ethos; it is the only country in the region that allows freedom...

Just to magnify your question somewhat, you’ll note that Torah presents the original paradigm of marriage—that of Adam and Eve—as monogamous. Furthermore, virtually every instance of polygamy recounted in the Torah is related directly by the narrative to some sort of calamity—whether strife between competing wives, as was the case with Hannah and Peninah,1 or between rivaling half-siblings, e.g. Jacob’s2 and King David’s sons.3 Even the very verse4 in which the Torah provides a green light for polygamy frames it within an undesirable circumstance: “If a man will have two wives, one beloved and the other hated . . .”...

A Jerusalem family ripping up its living room floor found a staircase lost for 2,000 years, leading to a large ritual bath carved out of bedrock. It took the family some years to call in the authorities and show them the discovery beneath their house, in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Ein Kerem. Throughout the interim, the family blocked off the entrance to the mikveh with wooden doors, and simply continued to live over it. When they did call in the Israel Antiquities Authority, beneath the doors, the archaeologists found the carved stone staircase leaving to a big mikveh, 3.5 meters...

(JTA) — American Jews are among the most supportive religious groups of same-sex marriage. Some 77 percent of American Jews expressed support for same-sex marriage, according to data gathered in 2014 by the Public Religion Research Institute. Some 47 percent of American Jews polled said they “strongly favor” allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry legally, and 30 percent said they “favor” it.

Maybe this will be an impetus for American Orthodox Jews to make aliya. There's some real fear going around about the future implications of last week's US Supreme Court decision forcing the states to allow 'gay marriage' and how that might impact Orthodox Jewish institutions. [T]he Orthodox Jewish community has a different view. This was voiced by, among others, the Orthodox Union and the Agudath Israel of America. The latter, in a statement Friday, warned that its members faced “moral opprobrium” and were in danger of “tangible negative consequences” if “they refuse to transgress their beliefs.” To judge by...

The debate over why Jews vote the way that they do is an old one, but it’s rarely backed by much data except the estimates of the Jewish vote from the last election. There is, however, one piece of data that currently predicts the Jewish vote. It’s religious attendance. 60 percent of Jews that attend weekly religious services disapprove of Obama. Only 34 percent approve. Among those who don’t attend religious services, approval of Obama stood at 58 percent to 38 percent. There are really two Jewish votes; the religious Jewish vote and the secular Jewish vote. ... When we...

Ted Cruz would have to authorize the PAC for it to use its name, the FEC ruled. “Jews for Cruz” can be for just about anything but Cruz, the Federal Election Commission said, according to Time Magazine. The Jews for Cruz PAC backs Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and his presidential bid, but Cruz has not authorized them to do so. Thus they must change their name, the FEC informed the PAC in a letter Monday. FEC rules (see page four, here) say a political action committee must have a formal affiliation with a candidate in order to include the candidate’s...