What we can learn from the RCA and the URJ

By Amram Altzman November 15, 2015

On Oct. 30, mainstream Orthodox leaders in the Rabbinical Council of America confirmed once again that women who receive the same training and jobs as men still are not — and never will be — equal to men. Six days later, the Union for Reform Judaism passed a landmark resolution on the inclusion of transgender individuals…

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‘Gay!’ vs. ‘Goy!’: Examining ‘Manliness’ in Yeshiva vs. Public High Schools

By Yitzi Turniansky November 20, 2014

This semester, I read C. J. Pascoe’s Dude, You’re A Fag, an ethnography of a typical American public high school. To summarize some of Pascoe’s “findings” (I put “findings” in quotes because to most teenaged American boys, what follows may come as no surprise), high school boys become men in a two-part process: 1) embracing…

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The Value of a Chained Woman

By Rivka Joseph November 18, 2014

Deuteronomy 24:1 states, “If a man takes a wife and possesses her and she fails to please him because he finds something obnoxious about her, he writes her a Bill of Divorcement, hands it to her and sends her away from his house.” Based on this verse of the Torah, the entire decision to divorce…

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Take Back the Mikveh: The Need to Democratize Orthodox Judaism

By Amram Altzman October 28, 2014

This summer, I had the opportunity to do something that few other men my age do: immerse in the mikveh. Normally, my Jewish  rituals are public: I don my kippah wherever I go, I generally pray every morning with my tallit and tefillin in the presence of at least ten other people, and I light…

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When Will Orthodoxy be Ready for Me?

By Amram Altzman September 16, 2014

  I’ve written about the successes and shortcomings of my fourteen years of Modern Orthodox day school education before, from religious, secular, and Zionist perspectives. I’ve also written about the thought processes behind my decisions to leave the Modern Orthodox world and join — at least for now — egalitarian communities that fall more in…

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How Hobby Lobby Forces American Jews to Reexamine Our Commitments to Religion, Pluralism, and Secular Governance

By Maddie Ulanow July 23, 2014

The case of Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., presented a classic conundrum in American constitutionalism: a conflict between religious expression and the lengths to which such expression may infringe on the rights of others. The case also raised controversial questions of personhood and gender equity, and ultimately seemed to pit the interests of religious…

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Reflections of a Day School Graduate, One Year Out

By Amram Altzman May 26, 2014

  I’ve written before on my day school education and its different aspects, critiquing how it taught me (or perhaps should have taught me) to look at my history and my past; I’ve also offered what can perhaps be best described as a back-handed compliment to my Jewish education. Now, as someone who has been…

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On the Conservative Movement, Egalitarianism, and Top-Down Judaism

By Amram Altzman May 19, 2014

Just over two weeks ago, the Conservative Movement’s Committee on Jewish Laws and Standards (CJLS) voted in favor of a controversial teshuvah (responsum), written by Rabbi Pamela Barmash, ruling that, according to Jewish law, women can be considered obligated in all of the ritual commandments from which they have classically been exempt. When I first…

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White Guilt and Evil Tongues

By David G. March 28, 2014

As with much of Leviticus, the material found in this week’s Torah reading, Parashat Tazria, can make us, with our modern sensibilities, squirm a bit. With the description of tzarat, a specific skin disease, the text seems to be stating that any who have strange marks on their skin are sinners who must be isolated…

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In Praise of Al Jazeera America – Israeli Media Can Take a Lesson

By Sam Hantverk February 6, 2014

Al Jazeera. Simply hearing the name would bother me two years ago, like nails on a chalkboard. In my ethnocentric view, I believed Al Jazeera existed for the sole purpose of promoting anti-Israel propaganda with the utmost criticism of the nation. How could I trust any of their other journalism with their articles containing blatant…

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In (a Somewhat Surprising) Defense of Jewish Education

By Amram Altzman February 3, 2014

I am a product of thirteen years of primary, elementary, and secondary Jewish day school education. I’ve been enrolled in a Jewish day school since I was three years old, and the idea of starting my school day at nine in the morning and ending at 2:30 in the afternoon is totally foreign to me….

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No, I Will Not Stop Criticizing Israel on Facebook

By Jonathan Katz January 28, 2014

I post a lot of things about the Holy Land on Facebook. I mean, I post about a lot of things – South Africa, migration politics, tasty coconut-based desserts – but also a lot about Israel and Palestine. And many of the things I post are not terribly adulatory of Israel. In fact, they’re starkly…

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Eat the Food Without Drinking the Kool-Aid: How to Get the Most out of Orthodox Outreach Programs

By David G. January 21, 2014

When I first started to attend a local Orthodox shul, I approached with what could be considered a strong level of trepidation. I grew up mainly Conservative, and considered myself as falling somewhere between the lines of Conservative and Reform. When I thought of Orthodoxy, I thought of my Pop’s narrow-minded uncle who never struck…

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Let’s Queer the Jewish Legal Tradition

By Amram Altzman December 16, 2013

I had the honor of speaking at the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance’s Voices of Change conference last week, where I, only for a day, became a high school student once again and spoke on a panel about navigating relationships and sexuality in high school as a feminist. While speaking, the topic of Shemirut Negi’ah, or…

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“Real” Rape

By Meggie O'Dell October 14, 2013

When my roommate at USC, a film student with a pink streak in her hair, edited a documentary on rape, I remember the ambivalence I felt. This issue, I thought, was a closed book: a mandatory assembly on rape and consent, massive turnout for Take Back the Night demonstrations, “yes means yes and no means…

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