The Haredim: A Defense : Azure - Ideas for the Jewish Nation azure.org.il - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from azure.org.il Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The Haredim will be the first to admit that their existence today is little short of miraculous. For centuries, the traditional Jewish way of life suffered one setback after another, each more perilous than the last. First came the Emancipation, which threw open the doors of modern culture to Eastern European Jews; after generations in the confines of ghetto and shtetl, where the Jewish religion was preserved in its traditional forms, many Jews began the journey toward secularism. So, too, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, did the movement known as the Haskala, or Jewish Enlightenment, encourage secular studies and scientific methods to approach the Jewish tradition, leading an even larger number of religious Jews to withdraw from the classical way of life.
By Pearl Markovitz | January 28, 2021
Sam Kaplan and wife, Marsha, have been Teaneck residents for the past 42 years. Between davening at Beth Aaron, Shaare Tefila and Chabad, and this year, the Trafalgar Minyan, they have come to know a great many Teaneckers.
In 1985, the Kaplans and two friends now residing in Israel, Jeff Glazer and Aaron Mandelbaum, realized there was a “need and a niche” for bringing local Jews closer to Judaism. Thus the Jewish Learning Experience (JLE) was born, and Sam Kaplan became its president. During the course of the next 35 years, Kaplan estimates that over 10,000 people were influenced by the outreach of this grassroots organization.