Author: Elli Fischer

There are many words that come to mind when describing Jewish communities deep within the Shomron; “pragmatic” is not one of them. Yet Har Bracha, more than any other yishuv and perhaps more than any other community in Israel, is the product of an attempt to translate a particular vision of Torah-centered communal life into a holistic plan that encompasses practicalities like economic self-sufficiency, higher education, commuting distances and the costs of housing and day care. And that plan is becoming a reality.

It is easy to overlook Moshav Matityahu. It is located on a strategic hill that overlooks Ben-Gurion Airport, across the road from Hashmonaim, a Modern Orthodox suburb that is popular among American olim. One reaches Matityahu from the road to Kiryat Sefer, the first neighborhood in the Chareidi city of Modi’in Illit.

In 2003, my wife, daughter and I spent the summer in Israel. We had already made aliyah, but had temporarily moved back to the US. On a whim, we checked out an open house in Modi’in, and by the end of the summer we had signed a contract to buy a home under construction that […]

  Start a child upon his path, even when he ages he will not stray from it” (Mishlei 22:6). This verse, in its straightforward meaning (and as expounded by Rabbi Kalonymus Shapira in his introduction to Chovat Hatalmidim, contra the trend to cite the well-known first half of the verse while ignoring the crucial second part), […]

JLIC Spearheads Efforts to Enhance Campus Communities A vibrant Orthodox campus community used to mean the availability of kosher food, a minyan that meets more than once a week and an occasional shiur. Lately, however, students have come to expect more. For many, religious life on campus has come to mean multiple daily minyanim, a […]