Europe has long been a leading destination for the world’s migrants. In recent years, the number of people migrating to Europe has increased dramatically, owing especially to ongoing conflict in the Middle East. In 2015 alone, more than 1 million asylum seekers applied for refugee status in the European Union. The majority of these asylum […]
Standard lists of history’s most influential religious leaders – among them Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) – tend to be predominantly, if not exclusively, male. Many religious groups, including Roman Catholics and Orthodox Jews, allow only men to be clergy, while others, including some denominations in the evangelical Protestant tradition, have lifted that restriction only in recent decades. Yet it often appears that the ranks of the faithful are dominated by women.
There are deep divisions in Israeli society over political values and religion’s role in public life — not only between Jews and the Arab minority, but also among the religious subgroups that make up Israeli Jewry.