In an era of growing social divisions in Israel, the Barmi family of Modiin represents a unique bridge between the religious and secular worlds. Attorney Oren Barmi, 44, and his wife, Neta Goshen-Barmi, 44, have built a life that seamlessly blends their different backgrounds while raising their three children to appreciate both traditions.

The Home: A five-bedroom townhouse with a garden in Modiin's Cramim neighborhood. The row of houses is tucked away, accessed through a parking area. A charming small path leads to the house. While each child has their own room, the family spends most of their time together in the living room.

Good Morning: The day begins around 7 a.m. Each morning, one parent prepares sandwiches and food for the children, each with different preferences for their lunch contents – "nothing spreadable except chocolate." They wake the children, and Neta drives them to school on her way to the Paatei Modiin train station for work. Oren usually leaves around the same time for his office, though sometimes he stays back to pray and have coffee at home before departing.

Students: They met during orientation week at the Hebrew University Law Faculty in 2002. Groups were divided alphabetically, putting Neta Goshen and Oren Barmi in the same sections with shared courses throughout. "We formed a tight-knit group of six or seven really good friends who lived the true student life, just like in TV shows and movies. Always going out together, hanging out. We were part of the group and good friends with each other."

Ponytail: Oren had a ponytail when they met, while Neta sported short, spiky red-orange hair. Oren took interest in Neta quite early, but she only "discovered" him, as she puts it, the day her mother gave him a haircut and removed the ponytail, which Neta found unattractive. "We started dating immediately after that."

Blend: They dated for four years, and while studying for the bar exam together, he suggested one evening that she change out of her sweatpants and dress up nicely. She immediately suspected a marriage proposal was coming. They married in August 2007. This wasn't a typical union, as Neta came from a secular background while Oren was Modern Orthodox. "From the beginning of our relationship, we needed discussions about how our shared life would look, where the children would study, and what the wedding would be like. Indeed, at every stage, you can see the blending of our two worlds."

Hot Plate and Pot: During Oren's first Shabbat at Neta's home, he arrived with a Shabbat hot plate and a pot. When she was invited to Friday night dinner at his parents' house as a surprise for his birthday, she thought "Shabbat evening" meant Saturday night. "It's worth noting that both our families embraced our mixed relationship beautifully and lovingly from day one, and that's our part in bringing hearts together to this day."

Phone and Television: The children's daily life follows religious practices: they observe Shabbat, keep kosher, pray, and so on, while Neta's secular lifestyle is present in the home. She uses her phone on Shabbat and watches television in her room. The prevailing discussion at home is that children will shape their own path when they grow up.

Consulting and Problem-Solving: Neta is an employment law expert and partner at Arnon, Tadmor-Levy, working from the Azrieli Towers in Tel Aviv and occasionally from their Jerusalem office. She provides ongoing counsel primarily to major companies, tech firms, and startups, represents clients in court, and handles company acquisition deals. "I truly love my work and enjoy it, along with the company and atmosphere at the firm."

Oren is an attorney specializing in a niche field: municipal taxation. He co-owns an independent firm with partner Haim Goldfarb. The firm serves major companies across all sectors, dealing with property taxes, development levies, and various municipal fees. "The work involves ongoing consultation and numerous proceedings in appeals committees and administrative court petitions." Oren deeply enjoys his field and the challenge of 'cracking' each case to find the best legal approach for achieving favorable economic outcomes for clients.

Modiin: Initially, they lived in Tel Aviv, at the corner of Dizengoff and Jabotinsky. Oren promised they would move when their first child was born, and when Yonatan was one month old, they relocated to an apartment in Modiin. They chose Modiin for its proximity to family and the city's character. Neta's parents live in Maccabim, one of her sisters lives in the area, and Oren also has a brother in Modiin. "Additionally, given our religious-secular background, we knew Modiin had a school that integrates religious, traditional, and secular students, which was one of the important factors for us."

According to them, Modiin proved to be a wonderful city for families and raising children. "It's like a rural city, full of gardens and green parks, activities, and families in similar situations. We're part of the 'Yachad Community,' which has many activities outside school, including community Sabbaths, which are the crown jewel. We're also part of the 'Orot HaCramim' synagogue community, which has numerous activities and especially makes Sabbaths enjoyable. We've made many friends in the city, and lots of children constantly visit us."

France: Oren was born in Paris to a Religious Zionist family and had two older brothers. In 1984, when he was four, the family decided to immigrate to Israel. "All this while his father was already a doctor of psychology with a clinic and work, and his mother was already ill with cancer, and without knowing any Hebrew. They chose to settle in Rishon LeZion to avoid living in a concentration of French immigrants." They started from scratch, jobless and spending their time in Hebrew language classes, until slowly building their lives in Israel. Oren attended a religious elementary school and a religious high school in Rishon LeZion. In the army, he served in a communications role in a classified Air Force unit.

Maccabim: Neta was born in Rishon LeZion, the middle of three daughters, to a very liberal secular family. In 1986, when she was six, her family decided to move to the then "remote" and new settlement of Maccabim before the city of Modiin or the settlement of Reut existed. Neta served in the army as an education NCO in Shivta and later as an education officer in Har Gilo. She knew she wanted to be a lawyer since third grade.

Schnitzels: Yonatan loves basketball, playing regularly twice a week in a program ("not really a team"), and has even attended NBA games during his bar mitzvah trip. He enjoys hanging out with friends in the city center of Modiin. Nadav plays table tennis in a club and sometimes even beats his father. Rotem studies drama and loves making schnitzels and meatballs, hoping to become an actress or pastry chef. "Thanks to her strong interest in reading the 'Home Visit' column, we're here."

The post How this couple brings together religious and secular worlds appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

But despite promises that he would give Hassidim an extravagant sum during his visit to Israel, that figure has never materialized.

In total, he has reportedly brought with him some five million dollars, which is not enough to boost the financial well-being of the various Satmar communities in Israel.

The hassidic court in Israel has refused to accept subsidies from the state, unlike other ultra-Orthodox groups, and therefore relies entirely on donations from its headquarters outside Israel.

"This is a disgrace," said one haredi blogger, who noted that some communities affiliated with Satmar received just several thousands of dollars from the rebbe.

"Toldos Aharon got $27,000, which is not enough even to buy bread and milk for its institutions. It is just laughable. The Kehilat Monsey rabbi in Beit Shemesh got 8,000 dollars, and this is fewer than $2 a day per child."

The post Satmar Hassids disappointed after rebbe brings little financial relief appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

"More people tend to define themselves using the 'extreme' categories [of] religious or secular, and fewer categories in the middle," Dr. Yochi Fischer tells Israel Hayom.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

Fischer, a senior researcher at the Van Leer Institute, says that in 2002, 28.4% of Israelis defined themselves as "traditional but not religious," whereas in 2015 23.8% of respondents picked that category to describe their level of religious observance. Fischer attributes this shift to a cultural change that took place within the group that formerly defined itself as "traditional."

"We claim that they're doing this became they want to assign themselves to one of the camps, kind of close ranks, and adjust themselves to discourse that is very polarizing, not to say belligerent"

Polls by the Central Bureau of Statistics, the IDI, the Pew Institute, and other research bodies conducted from 2009-2017 presents a picture of increasing polarization between the "religious" and "secular" groups. But the Van Leer Institute, whose work focuses on social tensions in Israeli society, draws a different conclusion from the data.

One of the data points Fischer uses to make her argument is taken from the CBS' social survey, in which 18% of Jewish respondents said that they were more religious than they had been in the past, whereas 16% said they were less religious than they had been. This would appear to indicate that the two groups were moving further to each extreme, but Fischer says it shows that most of the public is holding steady when it comes to their way of life.

"There is a very large discrepancy between the polarized discourse about religification and secularization and what is actually happening. The numbers contradict the reality, because society is much more complex and more in the center of the spectrum than it has ever been," Fischer says.

Q: But that contradicts some of the polls published in the same time period, some of which you [the Van Leer Intitute] also analyzed.

"Much of the polls are conducted in the context of the present day, when discourse is highly factionalized and people are being asked to place themselves on one side or another and assign themselves a clear identity. But the differences between the two sides aren't dramatic. For example, given the discourse, we would expect to see a large jump in the number of religious people, because of the supposed religification. In fact, other than the increase in the haredi population, which is nothing more than the result of demography [the sector's high birth rate], the past few years haven't seen any major rise, not on the religious side or on the secular side, and certainly not because of cultural and religious changes."

Q: On what do you base your assumption that the talk about religification does not reflect the reality?

"If you look at various sectors of Israeli society, you'll see that there are processes that express secularization alongside religification, and they don't necessarily contradict one another," Fischer says.

This week, Fischer is slated to take part in a panel that is part of a series of events the institute is holding in various bars throughout Tel Aviv to discuss the issues of "Israeli secularism." The panel is titled, "Thank God, Israeli is becoming secular." Fischer has a number of explanations and examples to back up the name: "There are more marriages and possibilities for burial outside the rabbinate. There is private kashruth certification and public transportation on Shabbat. Along with that, there are also more blatant expressions of religious observance, such as gender-separated events, which did not used to exist."

Q: How do those not contradict one another?

"Take the issue of gender-segregated public events. 30 years ago, the haredi public never went to public concerts – today, they take part in events that are considered part of secular culture, but they do so while trying to preserve their lifestyle in a manner that might be even more stringently religious than in the past. They are undergoing a process of secularization, but not in the sense of abandoning their religious lifestyle or the religious commandments.

"Another example is segregation in academia. We can see that segregation as increased religiousness or religification, but when we look at the big picture, this is a conservative population that is opening itself up and going to institutions that are essentially secular, like universities, and using a secular product, like education.

"Some people see that as religification, and some see it as secularization. The haredi public has internalized secular, liberal values like the right to self-fulfillment and to integrate into society. In the name of those values, they're asking for gender segregation. They are undergoing a process of secularization and within the secular sphere they want to do ti in a way that is comfortable for them."

Q: So why is there so much fear of religious coercion and religification?

"Here we have the difficulty and the paradox of the secular word. It isn't confused because it is being made more religious, but because its liberal boundaries are being tested. Generally speaking, secularism has been very successful and now it has to accept a lot more religiousness by individuals who are coming under its umbrella," Fischer says.

Fischer says that today, there is more flexibility and a bigger scale when it comes to religious observance.

"There is a spectrum of religious people and a spectrum of traditional people and a spectrum of 'believers.' There are important, bilateral processes taking place in Israeli society, both toward religion and toward secularism, and not necessarily toward extremism on either side. The wars over religification and secularization are shallow, and that discourse is part of the problem."

The post 'Israel is becoming more secular as well as more religious' appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

"Even if it was a religious woman, it wouldn't be OK. The complicated vortex of politics is not the arena for the role of women," Aviner said.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

Shaked, who is currently vacationing in Canada with her family, responded on Twitter, saying she "just wanted to remind everyone" that women can do everything – including "serve as party leader, mayor, company CEO and even prime minister."

Meanwhile, the religious Zionist party Habayit Hayehudi is saying that women play an "important role" in political activity.

On Thursday afternoon, Habayit Hayehudi released a statement on the status of women in its ranks, claiming that "Habayit Hayehudi is the first party that put together a major women's forum and fosters women as leaders, and some 45% of Habayit Hayehudi members are women."

"In addition, the party has places reserved on its list for women to promote appropriate representation [of women] in the Knesset. … We believe that women have an important place in Israeli activity," the party statement read.

Aviner is a signatory to a petition circulated in the national-religious camp against Shaked being appointed head of the United Right. Although the petition makes does not explicitly mention Shaked by name, it reads, "We support [United Right leader] Rabbi Rafi Peretz's position that a God-fearing Jew who observes Torah and mitzvot must be at the head of the national religious party."

The post 'Women can do anything, even be prime minister' appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.