MK Israel Eichler (United Torah Judaism) launched a diatribe against the Reform Movement and the High Court of Justice over the court’s decision that people who did not convert through the state-sanctioned, Orthodox system must not be denied the right to immerse in public ritual baths.
Ukrainian police arrested an ultra-Orthodox couple from Israel at Kiev’s Boryspil Airport after finding more than two pounds of marijuana in their luggage.
The Rabbinical Committee for Communication Affairs is demanding that the prominent ultra-Orthodox Eda Haredit organization employ inspectors to patrol authorized cell phone stores in haredi neighborhoods and ensure that the devices sold in those stores are indeed “strictly kosher” – with no camera or Internet access.
The ultra-Orthodox city of Bnei Brak is abuzz after the Cofix coffee chain, which offers all its products for NIS 5 (about $1.30), opened its fourth branch on Rabbi Akiva Street, sparking an intense business battle between the chain and owners of the veteran stores on the busy street.
A 24-year-old female transgender inmate at the Neveh Tirtzah women’s prison filed a petition with the Lod District Court on Thursday challenging her placement in isolation wing, claiming that it is only as a result of her transgender identity.
The Jerusalem District Court on Wednesday rejected a petition by the family of May Peleg, a transgender woman who committed suicide last weekend, that she be buried rather than cremated. The court ordered that Peleg’s body be cremated, as she requested in her will.
The ultra-Orthodox family of a transgender woman who committed suicide over the weekend is trying to stop the cremation of her body, despite the woman’s wish to be cremated, as expressed in her will. Jerusalem District Court will hand down its ruling in the matter Wednesday.
Israel’s chief Sephardi rabbi, Yitzhak Yosef, expressed opposition over the weekend to the broadcast of his sermons on the ultra-Orthodox radio station Kol Ba’rama, thus deepening his personal involvement in a political and commercial dispute between Shas leader Arye Deri and his predecessor and rival Eli Yishai.
El Al has promised to look into an incident on a recent flight in which the in-flight movie was stopped after about 20 minutes and the screens folded back in deference to the feelings of the ultra-Orthodox passengers on board.
She just completed her studies at an ultra-Orthodox seminary in Jerusalem, and celebrated her 18th birthday only a month ago, but Bracha Benhaim is already one of the hottest fashion designers in Israel’s haredi sector.