Religious leaders criticize state-religious education for being unable to prevent students from leaving. Rabbi Benny Lau: System created divisive network since it did not accept diversity of strengthening orthodoxy
Kobi Nahshoni
"Ethnic segregation is a tragedy, a bone of contention; the system isolating itself is an embarrassment," Rabbi Dr. Benny Lau said Wednesday as he addressed growing amount of private religious schools and the weakening of state-religious education.

By Shahar Ilan

The Knesset caucus for secular Judaism and organizations from all streams of Judaism have created a coalition of conversion courts independent from the Chief Rabbinate. The coalition, which was approved last week, is being coordinated by PANIM for Jewish Renaissance, an advocacy group for pluralistic Judaism.

By URIEL HEILMAN 

When the liberal wing of American Orthodoxy gathered this past Sunday at a Reform temple in Manhattan for its biennial Edah conference, the message on the state of the union was mixed.

On the one hand, the conference's main presenters noted, the state of American Orthodoxy is good.

By Yair Sheleg

There are some doctoral dissertations that clearly articulate the writer's personal agenda. This is true for Ora Cohen, of the settlement of Elkana in the northern West Bank. As a Jewish feminist and former head of the liberal religious organization Ne'emanei Torah Ve'avoda, Cohen says that many questions that trouble Jewish women like herself never receive answers. "They tell us: This is what halakha [Jewish law] says, like it or not. So I decided to probe deeper and find out what the halakha really does say, and how these things evolved."

By MATTHEW WAGNER

Religious Israelis are more concerned than their secular counterparts about the potential danger of assimilation presented by the influx of non-Jewish immigrants from the Former Soviet Union to Israel, according to a survey released Wednesday by the Immigration and Absorption Ministry.

I went to a rally last night! It was organized by Ne'emanei Torah vaAvodah to protest the Supreme Rabbinical Court's ruling from the end of April, which invalidated thousands of conversions carried out in Israel over the past few years by Rabbi Haim Druckman, head of the Israeli Conversion Court. Some background:

Religious Israelis are more concerned than their secular counterparts about the potential danger of assimilation presented by the influx of non-Jewish immigrants from the Former Soviet Union to Israel, according to a survey released Wednesday by the Immigration and Absorption Ministry.
Some 87 percent of religious Israelis said they were concerned about intermarriage and assimilation in the wake of the arrival of approximately 300,000 non-Jewish FSU immigrants, who came to Israel under the Law of Return.

Dozens of rabbis, educators, academicians and public figures sign petition calling on government to strengthen state-religious education, urging religious public to protest 'privatization and elitism'
Kobi Nahshoni
Published: 05.30.08, 13:02 / Israel Jewish Scene