Judy Lash Balint's Page

For the past several years I've been putting out a light-hearted '18 Ways You Know Pesach is Coming In Israel' piece to describe the frenetic days leading up to Pesach in the holy city.

This year, there are a few additional notable events that are driving the news cycles over here.

Apart from the upcoming Mid-East visit of the pope and the ongoing saga of when Bibi may be able to put together a new government, there's the controversy over the Chametz Law. Never heard of it? Well, since… Continue

The Days of Awe are drawing to their climactic conclusion, and signs
of the impending Day of Judgment may be seen all over the country.

In the days before Yom Kippur, thousands of Torah observant Israelis
rush to finish the ritual of kapparot, where human sins are
symbolically transferred to a fowl--generally a chicken. It's a
custom that does not appear anywhere in the Talmud, but whose origin
seems to come courtesy of several 9th century rabbis.

In a parking lot near Jerusalem's Macha… Continue