Related Websites

Taharat Hamishpacha

The Eden Center focuses on enabling all women to have a personally meaningful and welcoming experience in the mikveh, providing support and resources for crisis and lifecycle moments and transforming the mikveh into a vehicle to promote women’s emotional and physical health, intimacy and well-being.

The Eden Center’s blog present various voices on topics such as mikveh, sexuality, marriage, women’s health, body image, parenting, and Taharat Hamishpacha.

Mikvah.org is an introduction to mikveh and family purity, including philosophical and practical essays, personal stories, and a mikveh tour. The online “mall” sells bedikah cloths and other mikveh items, books, tapes, etc.

MikvahCalendar.com is an app and website for maintaining a personal veset calendar. It offers Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Chabad options and is available in English, Hebrew, French, Spanish, and Russian.

Tahor App is designed for situations in which a woman does not have access to a halachic authority to evaluate stains or bedikot. The app uses unique color calibration technology to allow women to send accurate photographs for rabbinic evaluation. Tahor is currently available for iPhones and for a few models of Android phones.

Bedikahcloths.com sells bedikah cloths online for delivery in France, Italy, Spain, Germany, and the UK.

Toras Hamishpacha provides an international telephone hotline and email service offering halachic and medical guidance on topics such as staining, contraception, and fertility. Both rabbis and female advisors are available for consultation in English, Hebrew, or Yiddish.

Binyan Shalem (Hebrew) sponsors courses, lectures, and yemei iyun on taharat hamishpacha. Opportunities for engaged couples, married women and men, and kallah/chatan teachers.

Nishmat’s Women’s Health & Halacha Website: you’re already here! Check out the rest of the site for articles on the laws of niddah, women’s health, and the interface between them. Or ask your own questions to a yoetzet halacha (woman halachic consultant)

Infertility, Intimacy, and Medical Issues

Nishmat’s Jewish Women’s Health: The Hilchot Niddah Guide for Medical Professionals is the “sister site” of yoatzot.org. The site is designed to enable health professionals, such as physicians, midwives, nurses, and psychologists, to understand the needs of patients/clients who observe Jewish law (halacha). It is an excellent resource for women seeking to communicate with their healthcare providers about the halachic implications of medical conditions and procedures. It is also available as an app.

Keren Gefen (Gefen Fertility) provides emotional and wellness support to fertility challenged women in Israel. Their programs include Fertility Yoga, Mind-Body Workshops, CBT Workshops, Transfer with Tranquility – “Individual Therapy,” Hevruta Jewish Textual Learning and Support Workshops, and the Nishmat Yoatzot Halacha Fertility Counselors Program.

The Puah Institute for Medicine & Fertility in Accordance with Halacha (or Hebrew site) offers counseling, guidance and assistance to couples with gynecological and fertility problems worldwide. They also provide full halachic supervision in hospitals and fertility laboratories for couples undergoing fertility treatments, and offer a variety of courses, seminars, study tours, and lectures.

Merkaz Yahel (Hebrew) A center for education and counseling in the areas of intimacy and sexuality within the framework of Torah and halacha, located in Israel.

Shlema (Hebrew) The Israeli Organization for Vulvodynia, offers information and support for women dealing with vulvodynia and their partners.

Directory of pelvic floor physical therapists in Israel (in Hebrew).

A T.I.M.E. (A Torah Infertility Medium of Exchange). This organization offers numerous programs for couples experiencing infertility or pregnancy loss, including a website, a magazine, a telephone help line, local support groups and educational events, a lending library for books and tapes, medical referrals and advocacy, adoption services, national conferences, summer programs and shabbatonim.

Merkaz Panim, located in Israel, uses a multidisciplinary approach – including counseling, body empowerment, and therapeutic massage – to provide emotional and physical support to women and couples facing fertility challenges. The center also offers information and referrals to professionals in relevant fields.

Yesh Tikva. Created by women who suffered silently through infertility for too long, Yesh Tikva strives to serve the emotional and physical needs of Jewish couples struggling with infertility and aims to increase awareness, empathy and sensitivity from within the community at large. Halachic guidance is available through Yesh Tikvah from two Yoatzot Halacha – Dr. Penina Dienstag and Dalia Shulman, and rabbinic consultation from Rabbi Kenneth Auman, Dean of Nishmat’s U.S. Yoatzot Halacha Fellows Program, and Rabbi Gedalyah Berger, Senior Lecturer for Nishmat’s U.S. Yoatzot Halacha Fellows Program.

Zir Chemed. A halachic fertility clinic offering a holistic approach that combines counseling, emotional support and technical expertise. The clinic is located in Israel, but consultations and assistance are also available elsewhere.

Tefilat Chana provides support for Jewish couples in Australia who are experiencing infertility, reproductive health issues or pregnancy loss, as well as an online Ask! service.

The website of the Dr. Falk Schlesinger Institute for Medical-Halachic Research provides extensive resources on the interactions between medicine, ethics, and halacha. The Institute, under the auspices of the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, works to research and resolve emerging halachic issues.

Frum Support is a website where people from the Orthodox Jewish community suffering from diseases and serious medical conditions and their families, can draw support from others in like situations.

Pregnancy

Jewish Mom.com offers a wide selection of articles and videos dedicated to finding meaning and spirituality in the experiences of pregnancy, birth, and motherhood.

The Jewish Pregnancy Loss website is a “place for Jewish women and men of all religious outlooks who have suffered through miscarriage, stillbirth, or neonatal loss…. to find information, explore your emotions, search for further resources, cry, think things through, and connect to God – in private, but still not alone.”

Courses

Nishmat’s Kallah Companion is an online interactive curriculum for kallot, created by yoatzot halacha and designed to supplement traditional kallah classes.

Nishmat’s Marriage Companion is a comprehensive online review course, covering the laws of taharat hamishpacha as well as women’s health and the reproductive life cycle.

Shalom Bayit

Bechirat HaLev/Choice of the Heart includes numerous articles and resources related to marriage education and relationship skills.

Other Halachot

Deracheha is a website on women and mitzvot that presents Halacha accurately and respectfully, in a woman’s voice. The site seeks to grant women access to halachic discourse, to build a community of learners, and to raise the caliber of halachic discussion and mitzva observance. It includes articles, sources, podcasts, and the opportunity to ask questions.

OU Kosher provides answers to halachic questions about kashrut and other topics.

Please note that contemporary halachic authorities may have slightly different approaches to certain questions. Therefore, you may find occasional discrepancies between the rulings of the various books and websites available. If you are not sure how to conduct yourself, an individual question should be asked.

We try to keep this page up to date; however, the web is constantly changing. If you encounter problems with any of these links, please take a moment to let us know through “Ask a Yoetzet.” Thank you!