It’s only Tu Beshevat, but the marketing for Purim is ratcheting up with advertisements for Purim costumes everywhere. A week or two ago, Hadassah Margolese, mother of 8-year-old Naama of Beit Shemesh fame, opened a haredi weekly distributed for free in her building’s mailboxes. Read More »

Last week in Australia, Caroline Lovell, a home birth advocate. died in childbirth . Blogger Mia Freedman reports on the story and adds: When I went to look for information on the death of Janet Fraser’s baby during her freebirth, I found that all Read More »

Photo by Yossi Eli, NRG Last week a Beit Shemesh woman named Natalie Mashiach drove into Ramat Beit Shemesh Bet, an area occupied by extremist haredim. Dressed in a sweater and pants, Mashiach got out of her car to hang signs as part of her job for the national lottery. Read More »

Nitsa and her dad Please welcome Maya Molly for today’s guest post. About a year ago, I left an anonymous comment on this blog. In response to the disturbing story about feticide at 40 weeks , I shared myown fears about prenatal testing here in Israel. Read More »

Chana Jenny Weisberg of JewishMom.Com wrote this guest post in response to comments on this site and elsewhere criticizing the parents affected by the Nachalaot pedophilia tragedy as negligent. When parents hear that someone else’s child has been hurt, often their first response is to blame that injured child’s parents. Read More »

Yisrael Hayom published this article about the children of Nachlaot . The residents of Nachlaot are anxious for it to be translated into English and published, and I have done so below. Read More »

Readers from overseas come here to find out whether a Hebrew or Israeli name they have chosen “fits” here in Israel. I think that the parents who chose the following names would have been discouraged by readers. Read More »

Dear readers, I was planning to write a light post today, about unusual Israeli baby names, but unfortunately that post will wait. If you are looking for inspiring, humorous posts I ask for your patience–they will come. Instead I have translated an article that is difficult to read. Read More »

Hadassah Margolese, mother of Naama Since the documentary aired last week ( now updated with clearer subtitles ), the girls of Orot in Beit Shemesh have been able to get to school with no problem. The publicity achieved its immediate goal. Whether it will work in the long term remains to be seen. Read More »

I had mixed feelings about translating and re-uploading this documentary about the school situation in Beit Shemesh , which has been going on in September. There is a lot of anti-haredi feeling in the country right now, and I fear that it could get out of hand. However, we can’t let people get what they want through violence and intimidation. Read More »

You may not have noticed, because the first day of Chanukah fell on Shabbat last year, but Chanukah vacation is a day longer this year. We’re scheduled to have the day “returned” at the end of August, along with four other days. Passover vacation will start a day earlier too. Read More »

I was sitting with my friend, T. at the shiva for her father. “I want you to write about this,” she says suddenly. “I don’t know how to write. I know you’ll write something poignant, with humor, like you always do.” We’ve taken care of the humor, at least. Here is the story. T. made aliyah as a child with her family. Read More »

I’ve written a lot about extreme modesty in women’s dress and we always have this discussion about whether or not it is any of our business. At what point do we say “live and let live,” and when do we begin to worry that these trends will affect us in our daily lives . Well, the time to worry is here. Read More »

The following is a guest post by Ayala Gordesky. Jerusalem has awakened in that last five or six years, recovering from the slump in tourism and during the first intifada. Visitors have returned to Jerusalem, enjoying the numerous fairs, concerts, and festivals. Read More »

This is a guest post by Talia Klein Perez.   Over the last year, our government passed laws that favor consumers, mainly canceling the high fines we have had to pay to leave one service provider for another. With the current formula, you pay 8% of your monthly bill times the number of months you have left. Read More »

A sheretz in the bug-free brussel sprouts Last week I heard a woman describe her first visit to the yarkan (produce store) as a new olah (immigrant) in the early 70s. Everyone knew where the produce store was, because a swarm of flies could be seen from a distance. Read More »

Chanukah this year falls on Tuesday evening, December 20 through Wednesday, December 28. Please welcome Miryam Elisheva Segal for today’s guest post.   My “family” Chanukah parties have taken many shapes over the years. Some were successes, some not, but we always had fun along the way. Read More »

Alex Libeck of Haaretz Tamar Rotem discussed the recent opposition to the cult of the veiled women in the Haaretz Friday weekly Hashavua . Even Haaretz calls them “Taliban women” only in quotes. Read More »

    In honor of the International Day of the Child, the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics published the 20 most popular baby names in 2010 .   Four of the top 5 names for girls are biblical (Noa, Tamar, Yael) or traditional (Shira). My husband argues that Shira is not really traditional, being around a hundred years old. Read More »

Yesterday I posted the most popular girls’ names in 2010 from the Central Bureau of Statistics. Today the boys take a turn. I’ve decided to label them by their prominence in the haredi (H), secular (S), or national religious communities (NR). Read More »