Menachem Mendel

The Beit Hillel inaugural conference (here, here, and here) is just underway. Rabbi Reuven Spolter is hoping to tweet from the conference. See this post of his about Beit Hillel. His twitter feed can be found here.

Posted on February 2nd, 2012 under Rabbinic Authority, Religion in Israel, Religious Authority, Religious Zionism. Comments: 1

Haaretz has translated an article into English about Beit Hillel. The group, to be known as Beit Hillel, already has 110 rabbis signed up, along with 30 women who are considered Torah scholars. It was founded by congregational rabbis in the central region, who say they represent the silent majority of the national-religious population that [...]

Posted on January 30th, 2012 under Religion in Israel, Religious Authority, Religious Zionism. Comments: 1

Today’s Makor Rishon has an article about Beit Hillel, a new rabbinic organization that I wrote about here. The organization sees itself as a more moderate religious zionist voice. The article notes that the membership of Beit Hillel includes thirty talmidot ḥachamim, female Torah scholars.

Posted on January 26th, 2012 under Religion in Israel, Religious Authority, Religious Zionism. Comments: 9

The following article was published in Israel Hayom on December 23, 2011. It describes a new group of national-religious rabbis called Beit Hillel who want to project a more moderate approach to Judaism and Jewish law. (hat tip)

Posted on January 4th, 2012 under Rabbinic Authority, Religion in Israel, Religious Zionism. Comments Off

Yoav Sorek has started a new blog (Hebrew), לאמיתה של תורה. It seems as if the blog will offer a different perspective and discourse on issues related to Israel and Judaism. The first post is about the fast of the tenth of Tevet.

Posted on January 4th, 2012 under Blogroll, Rabbinic Authority, Religion in Israel, Religious Zionism, Responsa. Comments: 2

The Rambam Library, Sifriyat ha-Rambam, is an important Judaica library that is located at Beit Ariella in Tel Aviv. The director of the library has a very nice blog, Im ha-Sefer, (Hebrew) that has posts about some of the many gems that are found in the library’s collection. He recently posted about some books that [...]

Posted on January 3rd, 2012 under Book Collecting, Rabbinic Literature, Religious Zionism, Sephardic Jewry. Comments: 2

For quite some time there has been a battle going on between ultra-Orthodox and national-religious Ashkenazim over who would be the next Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem. Because of this fighting, there hasn’t been a functioning Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem for nine years. According this report in Kikar Hashabbat and this one at Kipa, (Hebrew) [...]

Posted on January 2nd, 2012 under Religion in Israel, Religious Zionism. Comments: 1

In 2008 the Israel Democracy Institute sponsored a conference on Zionist Halakhah. Below are some videos from the conference. (Hebrew)

Posted on December 28th, 2011 under Halakhic Literature, Israel, Rabbinic Authority, Rabbinic Literature, Religion in Israel, Religious Authority, Religious Zionism. Comments Off

A few months ago the Israel Democracy Institute sponsored a symposium upon the release of a new book on the rabbinate. Below are two videos from the conference. (Hebrew)

Posted on December 28th, 2011 under Israel, Rabbinic Authority, Religion in Israel, Religious Authority, Religious Zionism. Comments: 1