Dear OU Family, From NCSY to Yachad, JLIC to Israel Free Spirit, and so much more — we know there are countless stories of people who have been impacted by the OU, and who themselves are now giving back to the community. Are you perhaps a JLIC student who was inspired to take an active role […]

Last week was not a good week. Three large scale terror attacks took place in the world – Istanbul, Bangladesh and Baghdad. There were also three tragic attacks in Israel in the last week. In the city of Netanya, Israelis were stabbed and wounded. A teen was butchered while sleeping in her bed at home in Kiryat Arbah. A father […]

Dr. Erica Brown’s piece on women in Jewish communal service, in the June issue of Jewish Action, sparked quite a conversation over Orthodox Jewry’s newsfeeds and Shabbat tables. Here’s her response: “The reactions remind me that, try as we might, gender issues are unavoidable; they still keep us up at night. They are more personal and more complicated […]

On Israeli Radio Kol Hai, Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv, Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, eulogized Elie Wiesel, who passed away this week in New York: “For forty days he succeeded in putting on tefillin in Auschwitz, at tremendous risk.” “People of his age went through a huge crisis of faith. [But when Wiesel] arrived in New […]

Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate who became a leading icon of Holocaust remembrance and a global symbol of conscience, died Saturday at 87. His death was the result of natural causes, the World Jewish Congress said in a statement. A philosopher, professor and author of such seminal works of Holocaust literature as […]

Sunday, May 22 – 9:30 a.m. – 12 p.m. To register, please click here Introduction Rabbi Julius Berman YU Trustee Chairman, OU Press Keynote Shiur: Toras HaRav Rabbi Hershel Schachter Rosh Yeshiva, RIETS Rosh Kollel, Marcos and Adina Katz Kollel Senior Posek, OU Kosher Personal Experiences and Reflections of the Rav Rabbi Kenneth Brander Vice […]

Ron Kampeas of the JTA has an insightful analysis about how the administration handled the recent murder of Ezra Schwartz z’l. How the Obama administration has handled last week’s murder in the West Bank of Ezra Schwartz, an 18-year-old from Sharon, Massachusetts, on his gap year in Israel, has raised painful questions among Jewish Americans […]

Next month, the Orthodox Union’s Biennial Convention<http://www.ou.org/convention/> will take place in Tarrytown, New York. In addition to a stimulating and informative program of shiurim and discussions, the Convention is also the setting for important “business” of the OU and our community – one aspect of which is the discussion and adoption of Convention Resolutions. These […]

Orthodox Union Executive Vice President (Chief Professional Officer) Allen Fagin is available to comment today on yet another attempt to kill Jews, this one in the early hours of the morning in which a “deranged” man shouting “I want to kill the Jew,” stabbed a student praying in the Chabad-Lubavitch synagogue in Crown Heights, Brooklyn […]