IJII

Rabbi Alan Yuter is Mara D'Atra of Baltimore's downtown Orthodox synagogue.

With the exception of Orthodox Jews whose background and heritage traces to Eastern Europe, observant males wear the tallit, or prayer shawl, upon reaching their religious majority, after reaching the age of thirteen years and one day.

After asking teens to wear the tallit upon reaching religious majority, I was told
• it is not our family tradition. The father comes to the synagogue with a hat, the children wear suits and no tallit. [tallis in their pronunciation of Hebrew]
• we do not want to be different
• my parents object and I am required to honor their requests

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Rabbi Alan Yuter is Rabbi of B'nai Israel, the Orthodox congregation of downtown Baltimore.

1. A recent conversion case

Recently, a Hareidi rabbinical court in Monsey, NY, required that a family (which includes a parent who converted to Judaism) commit to educate their children in a Hareidi school, un-enroll their children in the modern Orthodox school, and leave the community with which they affiliate. The Hareidi rabbinical court did not even contact the modern Orthodox community, school, or rabbinate to fact find regarding the family. The modern Orthodox school feels rejected, dejected, angry, and is in a quandary as how to respond. A suggested response is to disallow and to reject the conversions of the offending rabbinical court

2. What are kosher conversion standards?

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