- The ultra-Orthodox rabbinical court, Haredi Badatz, placed a curse on both the participants in the upcoming Jerusalem Gay Pride parade and the police officers who will be maintaining order: “….. they will feel in their souls a curse, a bad spirit will come over them and haunt them, they will never be cleansed of their sins, from the judgment of God, in their bodies, their souls and their finances.â€? (Haaretz)
- Long Island residents who claim to be synagogue members say its rabbi “has perverted the shul from a place of worship to a place of business for his own financial gainâ€? and have offered him $1 million just to walk away. But the rabbi insists that those who filed the suit were never members of the congregation, and wants to take a leader of the group, to a religious court — one with which he himself is affiliated. (The Jewish Week)
- Montreal’s only community mikvah sent out official notice in February that it could no longer be used for immersion by any convert to Judaism. Rabbi Itche Meir Gurary, who has managed the mikvah since it was opened, insisted in that the new policy was to uphold the standards of absolute cleanliness: “It used to be only a few converts a year, but now it’s 80,â€? but critics say it was merely a pretext to keep Conservative and Reform converts out: “Non-Orthodox converts now have nowhere to go…It is not a private mikvah. It was built by funds raised by the community.â€? (Canadian Jewish News)
shul
Pronounced: shool (oo as in cool), Origin: Yiddish, synagogue.
