Some Jews, mostly Orthodox, oppose abortion, and have been active in the movement to overturn Roe. But Ruttenberg said that Orthodox Jews are represented in Rabbis for Repro. That subgroup includes Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz, a popular writer and motivational speaker, and several Orthodox women who have been ordained and use the titles maharat or rabba.
Orthodox theology does not assign a fetus the status of a person, as do many Christians opposed to abortion, Rabbi Avi Shafran, a spokesman for Agudath Israel of America, a leading Orthodox group, told the Forward in 2019. And abortion is permitted in Orthodoxy to save the life of the mother and sometimes for other medical complications with permission from one’s rabbi.
If Yanklowitz and his Maharat friends are calling themselves Orthodox, we need to get a new adjective for ourselves.
ReplyDeleteYankle is effectively Conservative or Reform. It could be an age thing - for someone with values from parents born before WW2, and myself growing up before being gay became a "mitzvah" (chas v'shalom, but that's how it is portrayed) - then it is a Toevah. Fore the generation about 2 decades or more younger than me, then Toevah is just a lifestyle thing like being a vegan, vegetarian etc.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't tell from the comment, is Aguda against the legislation, or for it?
ReplyDeletehgjkld.co
ReplyDeleteIt's an interesting thing - with all the narishkeit that comes out of YCT, there are still certain things you never hear.
ReplyDeleteNo need for an eiruv! No need to wait 6 hours after meat! No need for the wife to go to the mivkah, a warm shower is fine. You never hear stuff like that. Why?
OO has split ritual from ethics. When it comes to ritual, they're find with it because it doesn't raise a fuss with the dominant secular society. But when it comes to ethics, then they do because they want to be good secular liberals. So they make the split - anything that doesn't contradict secular liberalism is observed properly. Anything that does contradict is tossed.
how about a guest post?
ReplyDeleteI put a post about that on my blog years ago - The Heresy of Zev Farber
ReplyDeleteheart.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-heresy-of-zev-farber.html
The question was: could one still eat in his home?
http://garnelironheart.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-heresy-of-zev-farber.html
ReplyDeletebetter link
it sounds like Louis Jacobs on England - who was one of the possible Chief Rabbi candidates. He then adopted documentary hypothesis, and still continued to practice keeping halacha the way he did in Yeshiva.
ReplyDeleteBut the movement he started is completely heretical, mainly religious drop outs and intermarried. And the people have no real observance, just a few traditions.
The other rabbis are all open apikorsim, and whether they keep halacha or not - who knows.