As the epicenter of world religion, the Holy Land provides an endless source of religion-based features. I’ve focused mostly on Judaism: the fraught relation between religion and state in Israel, tensions between the secular and ultra-Orthodox and how that has often created a rift with the Jewish Diaspora. Here is a selection of some of the stories and features I have written.
JERUSALEM (AP) — When Joseph Ratzinger became pope in 2005, many in Israel wondered whether the German-born Cardinal with the Nazi past would prove a worthy successor to the popular Pope John Paul II, whose pluralistic path helped sooth centuries…
JERUSALEM (AP) — In a chic auditorium typically reserved for late-night concerts, Israel’s next generation of high-tech entrepreneurs are gathered. Though their vocation is modern, their appearance and lifestyle are distinctly traditional and they are seated separately — men to…
RAMAT GAN, Israel (AP) — For the past 30 years, Israeli Judaic scholar Menachem Cohen has been on a mission of biblical proportions: Correcting all known textual errors in Jewish scripture to produce a truly definitive edition of the Old…
JERUSALEM (AP) — Deep in the heart of Mea Shearim, a Jerusalem bastion of hardline ultra-Orthodox Jews, hundreds of bearded young men in black suits have their noses burrowed into books, immersed in biblical study and oblivious to their surroundings….
MEVASSERET ZION, Israel—With the holy city of Jerusalem visible in the background, a man and woman standing side-by-side lead prayers for about 50 congregants who have come to welcome the Sabbath in this suburb’s Reform synagogue. Their prayer book includes…
JERUSALEM (AP) — It’s a huge question for observant Jews: How can one still believe in a merciful God after suffering through the worst genocide in history? As the world marks Holocaust Remembrance Day on Friday, members of Israel’s most…
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s prime minister suspended a television ad campaign aimed at luring home Israelis living in North America after it sparked an uproar among American Jews, his spokesman said Sunday. The government-sponsored advertisements, which were broadcast on Israeli…
BEIT SHEMESH, Israel (AP) — A shy 8-year-old schoolgirl has unwittingly found herself on the front line of Israel’s latest religious war. Naama Margolese is a ponytailed, bespectacled second-grader who is afraid of walking to her religious Jewish girls school…
JERUSALEM (AP) —With his dark suit, black skullcap and graying beard, Rabbi Haim Amsalem hardly looks the part of a revolutionary. But the soft-spoken lawmaker is causing an uproar in the influential and tight-knit ultra-Orthodox world in Israel with a…
JERUSALEM (AP) — The perpetually sleep-deprived scholar sits slouched in a large chair, a pipe to his lips, his long white beard curled into knots, strands of hair poking out from beneath his black skullcap. Lacking a rabbi’s traditional booming…
JERUSALEM (AP) — When Hillary Rubin immigrated from the U.S. to Israel, the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors and descendant of a famed Zionist visionary felt that she had finally arrived in her true home. But now that religious authorities are…
JERUSALEM — During its six decades of existence, Israel has maintained a shaky alliance with its ultra-Orthodox Jewish minority that allowed most religious men to avoid military service, attend separate schools and get paid by the state to study the…
JERUSALEM — A rivalry between two of Israel’s most famous cantors has spilled over from the exalted world of prayer into allegations of a sexual entrapment plot that includes hidden cameras, a police inquiry and a female private detective hired…
KIRYAT SHEMONA, Israel (AP) — Israelis in northern Israel welcomed the Sabbath at synagogues and with traditional festive meals on Friday, but the continuing threat of Hezbollah rockets and an uncertain future loomed large. Abraham Weitzman, 58, said services at…