Forward.com

A Different Drum: How a Modern Orthodox 23-Year-Old Danced Her Way Into a Unique SpotlightOne of this year’s arts fellows at Drisha, a Torah study center for women that is located on New York’s City’s Upper West Side, is a 23-year-old Barnard College graduate named Anna Schon. As a product of the Modern Orthodox day schools, she blends into the student body easily.…Read more

The Key DilemmaIn many cities around the globe, hotel guests enjoy hi-tech conveniences. Lobby doors whiz open automatically; the faucets in public restrooms begin spurting water as soon as a hand approaches and toilets flush when the user stands up. Most important, entering one’s room is easier than ever before: Instead of the cumbersome, old-fashioned key, the door unlocks with the mere swipe of a card.…Read more

My Father’s WordsThis month, during the first yahrzeit of my father, Mordkhe Schaechter, of blessed memory, I recalled a story my father used to tell us about his paternal grandfather, Reb Itsye Mordkhe — a shokhet (slaughterer) who was not very popular among the butchers of the shtetl because whenever he rendered one of their animals treyf, the animal could be sold only to non-Jews and at a much lower price. One day, the chief butcher in the shtetl warned him: “Reb Itsye Mordkhe, if you tell me one more animal is treyf, I’ll break your neck.” This did not frighten my great-grandfather, who continued to follow the letter of the law. One day, after he once again declared an animal nonkosher, the chief butcher, a large, muscular man, waited for him on a side street, and when Reb Mordkhe passed him by, the butcher struck him so hard that he was knocked unconscious. Several months later he passed away.…Read more

Yiddish Comes to the Non-Hasidic Orthodox ClassroomIn a brightly lit classroom, decorated with colorful posters and Hebrew lettering, the 24 second grade schoolgirls, dressed in crisp blue uniforms, listened as the young, modestly attired teacher reviewed the Genesis chapter in which God commands Abraham to leave his homeland.…Read more

Rabbi Navigates Polish-Jewish MinefieldAfter one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in Poland was vandalized last week, the chief rabbi of Poland found an unexpected source of help for the clean-up: 20 Polish art students and the mayor of the town himself, all of whom helped scrub the 100 gravestones spray-painted with black swastikas.…Read more