January 2012

Over the course of Jewish history, groups of Jews have occasionally splintered off from mainstream Torah Judaism, in terms of theology and observance. For example, in the Second Temple period, there were the Sadducees and the Essenes. In the early middle ages there were the Karaites. And in modern times, Jews have broken off to form non-Orthodox denominations. While the system of halacha (Jewish law) has many paths within it (i.e., there is often more than one halachically valid answer to a question), at a certain point, an idea or practice is simply outside the scope of normative Torah belief and observance.

Continue reading What’s in a Name: A Call to Re-brand the Extremists in Israel from “ultra-Orthodox” to “Sikrikim”