|
The Johannesburg Beth Din
The Johannesburg Beth Din is the Beth Din (Court of Jewish Law) of the Union of Orthodox Synagogues of South Africa. It serves Jews throughout South Africa and other countries on the continent. The focus of the Beth Din is on areas of family law, divorce and conversion, as well as adjudication of financial disputes. Other areas supervised by the Beth Din are: Circumcision, Stam, Mikvaot and Eruv An eruv (; he, עירוב, , also transliterated as eiruv or erub, plural: eruvin or eruvim) is a ritual halakhic enclosure made for the purpose of allowing activities which are normally prohibited on Shabbat (due to the prohibition of ''ho ...in. In 2004, the High Court of South Africa upheld a cherem (excommunication edict) against a Johannesburg businessman because he refused to pay his former wife alimony as ordered by The Johannesburg Beth Din. The case, because of its potential implications with regard to the interaction of religious and state law, elicited global interest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beth Din
A beit din ( he, בית דין, Bet Din, house of judgment, , Ashkenazic: ''beis din'', plural: batei din) is a rabbinical court of Judaism. In ancient times, it was the building block of the legal system in the Biblical Land of Israel. Today, it is invested with legal powers in a number of religious matters (''din Torah'', "matter of litigation", plural ''dinei Torah'') both in Israel and in Jewish communities in the Diaspora, where its judgments hold varying degrees of authority (depending upon the jurisdiction and subject matter) in matters specifically related to Jewish religious life. History Rabbinical commentators point out that the first suggestion in the Torah that the ruler divest his legal powers and delegate his power of judgment to lower courts was made by Jethro to Moses (Exodus ). This situation was formalised later when God gave the explicit command to "establish judges and officers in your gates" ( Deuteronomy ). There were three types of courts (Mishnah, trac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Union Of Orthodox Synagogues
The Union of Orthodox Synagogues (UOS) is the coordinating body of Orthodox Synagogues in South Africa. Activities * The UOS maintains a Beth Din, The Johannesburg Beth Din * The Office of the Chief Rabbi Dr. Warren Goldstein * The Kashrut Division supervises the production of kosher foodstuffs * Fights missionaries through ''Jews for Judaism'' * Publishes a magazine ''Jewish Tradition'' * Maintains a Community Development Division helping affiliated synagogues develop and grow. * Hosts The Sinai Indaba - an annual Torah convention featuring international Jewish thinkers and leaders. Chief Rabbis *Judah Leo Landau (1915–1942) * Louis Rabinowitz (1945–1961) *Bernard M. Casper (1963–1987) *Cyril Harris Cyril Kitchener Harris (19 September 1936 – 13 September 2005) was Chief Rabbi of The Union of Orthodox Synagogues of South Africa from 1987 to 2004. Harris was born in Glasgow, Scotland. During his tenure as Chief Rabbi, he was noted for ... (1988–2004) * Warr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countries of Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe; and to the east and northeast by Mozambique and Eswatini. It also completely enclaves the country Lesotho. It is the southernmost country on the mainland of the Old World, and the second-most populous country located entirely south of the equator, after Tanzania. South Africa is a biodiversity hotspot, with unique biomes, plant and animal life. With over 60 million people, the country is the world's 24th-most populous nation and covers an area of . South Africa has three capital cities, with the executive, judicial and legislative branches of government based in Pretoria, Bloemfontein, and Cape Town respectively. The largest city is Johannesburg. About 80% of the population are Black South Afri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brit Milah
The ''brit milah'' ( he, בְּרִית מִילָה ''bərīṯ mīlā'', ; Ashkenazi Hebrew, Ashkenazi pronunciation: , "Covenant (religion), covenant of circumcision"; Yiddish pronunciation: ''bris'' ) is Religion and circumcision, the ceremony of circumcision in Judaism. According to the Book of Genesis, God in Judaism, God commanded the Patriarchs (Bible), biblical patriarch Abraham to be circumcised, an act to be followed by his male descendants on the eighth day of life, symbolizing Covenant of the pieces, the covenant between God and the Jewish people. Today, it is generally performed by a mohel on the eighth day after the infant's birth and is followed by a celebratory meal known as ''seudat mitzvah''. ''Brit Milah'' is considered among the 613 commandments, most important and central commandments in Judaism, and the rite has played a central role in Jewish history, the formation and history of Jewish culture, Jewish civilization. The Talmud, when discussing the importa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sofer
A sofer, sopher, sofer SeTaM, or sofer ST"M ( he, סופר סת״ם, "scribe"; plural of is , ; female: ) is a Jewish scribe who can transcribe Sifrei Kodesh (holy scrolls), tefillin (phylacteries), mezuzot (ST"M, , is an abbreviation of these three terms) and other religious writings. By simple definition, soferim are copyists, but their religious role in Judaism is much more. Besides sifrei Torah, tefillin, and mezuzot, scribes are necessary to write the Five Megillot (scrolls of the Song of Songs, Book of Ruth, Book of Esther, Ecclesiastes, and Book of Lamentations), Nevi'im (the books of the prophets, used for reading the haftarah), and for , divorce documents. Many scribes also function as calligraphers—writing functional documents such as (marriage contracts), or ornamental and artistic renditions of religious texts, which do not require any scribal qualifications, and to which the rules on lettering and parchment specifications do not apply. The major halakha per ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mikveh
Mikveh or mikvah (, ''mikva'ot'', ''mikvoth'', ''mikvot'', or (Yiddish) ''mikves'', lit., "a collection") is a bath used for the purpose of ritual immersion in Judaism to achieve ritual purity. Most forms of ritual impurity can be purified through immersion in any natural collection of water. However, some impurities, such as a zav, require "living water", such as springs or groundwater wells. Living water has the further advantage of being able to purify even while flowing, as opposed to rainwater which must be stationary to purify. The ''mikveh'' is designed to simplify this requirement, by providing a bathing facility that remains in contact with a natural source of water. In Orthodox Judaism, these regulations are steadfastly adhered to; consequently, the mikveh is central to an Orthodox Jewish community. Conservative Judaism also formally holds to the regulations. The existence of a mikveh is considered so important that a Jewish community is required to construct ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eruv
An eruv (; he, עירוב, , also transliterated as eiruv or erub, plural: eruvin or eruvim) is a ritual halakhic enclosure made for the purpose of allowing activities which are normally prohibited on Shabbat (due to the prohibition of ''hotzaah mereshut lereshut''), specifically: carrying objects from a private domain to a semi-public domain (''carmelit''), and transporting objects four cubits or more within a semi-public domain. The enclosure is made within some Jewish communities, especially Orthodox Jewish communities. An eruv accomplishes this by symbolically integrating a number of private properties and spaces such as streets and sidewalks into one larger "private domain" by surrounding it with '' mechitzas'', thereby avoiding restrictions of transferring between domains. Often a group constructing an eruv obtains a lease to the required land from a local government. An eruv allows Jews to carry, among other things, house keys, tissues, medication, or babies with the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Herem (censure)
''Herem'' (, also Romanized ''chērem, ḥērem'') is the highest ecclesiastical censure in the Jewish community. It is the total exclusion of a person from the Jewish community. It is a form of shunning and is similar to ''vitandus'' "excommunication" in the Catholic Church. Cognate terms in other Semitic languages include the Arabic terms ''ḥarām'' "forbidden, taboo, off-limits, or immoral" and haram "set apart, sanctuary", and the Ge'ez word ''ʿirm'' "accursed". Arguably the most famous case of a herem is that of Baruch Spinoza, the seventeenth-century philosopher. Another renowned case is the herem the Vilna Gaon ruled against the early Hassidic groups in 1777 and then again in 1781, under the charge of believing in panentheism. Other famous subjects of a herem were early Russian communists Leon Trotsky and Grigory Zinoviev. Sometime in 1918, while Ukraine was under German occupation, the rabbis of Odessa pronounced herem against Trotsky, Zinoviev, and other Jewish Bols ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jewish Courts And Civil Law
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The people of the Kingdom of Israel and the ethnic and religious group known as the Jewish people that descended from them have been subjected to a number of forced migrations in their history" and Hebrews of historical History of ancient Israel and Judah, Israel and Judah. Jewish ethnicity, nationhood, and religion are strongly interrelated, "Historically, the religious and ethnic dimensions of Jewish identity have been closely interwoven. In fact, so closely bound are they, that the traditional Jewish lexicon hardly distinguishes between the two concepts. Jewish religious practice, by definition, was observed exclusively by the Jewish people, and notions of Jewish peoplehood, nation, and community were suffused with faith in the Jewish God, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jewish Marital Law
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The people of the Kingdom of Israel and the ethnic and religious group known as the Jewish people that descended from them have been subjected to a number of forced migrations in their history" and Hebrews of historical Israel and Judah. Jewish ethnicity, nationhood, and religion are strongly interrelated, "Historically, the religious and ethnic dimensions of Jewish identity have been closely interwoven. In fact, so closely bound are they, that the traditional Jewish lexicon hardly distinguishes between the two concepts. Jewish religious practice, by definition, was observed exclusively by the Jewish people, and notions of Jewish peoplehood, nation, and community were suffused with faith in the Jewish God, the practice of Jewish (religious) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jews And Judaism In Johannesburg
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The people of the Kingdom of Israel and the ethnic and religious group known as the Jewish people that descended from them have been subjected to a number of forced migrations in their history" and Hebrews of historical Israel and Judah. Jewish ethnicity, nationhood, and religion are strongly interrelated, "Historically, the religious and ethnic dimensions of Jewish identity have been closely interwoven. In fact, so closely bound are they, that the traditional Jewish lexicon hardly distinguishes between the two concepts. Jewish religious practice, by definition, was observed exclusively by the Jewish people, and notions of Jewish peoplehood, nation, and community were suffused with faith in the Jewish God, the practice of Jewish (religious) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
_mikveh.jpg "Click for more on -> Mikveh")
.jpg "Click for more on -> Jews And Judaism In Johannesburg")