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.
Binyan Shalem (Hebrew) sponsors courses, lectures, and yemei iyun on taharat hamishpacha. Opportunities for engaged couples, married women and men, and kallah/chatan teachers.
Sexuality
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).
Medical Issues & Women’s Health
The Jewish Orthodox Women’s Medical Association (JOWMA) provides free culturally-sensitive and relevant health education to the entire Orthodox Jewish community and supports a network of current and future Jewish female physician leaders.
The Confident Kallah is a website created by Dr. Elissa Hellman, an Orthodox Jewish OBGYN, with posts on women’s health that often incorporate a halachic perspective.
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.
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.
Mental Health Resources
Maaglei Nefesh: The Center for Mental Health, Community & Halacha provides spiritual, pastoral, and halachic support to members of the Jewish community dealing with mental health challenges. Specially-trained Rabbis and Rabbaniot are available by telephone, email, Zoom, and in communities.
The Blue Dove Foundation provides resources for education, awareness, and outreach about mental health and substance abuse issues in the Jewish community. Their website offers information (articles, audio, and video) on a variety of topics, as well as links to resources including inpatient and outpatient treatment facilitators, and emotional and spiritual support.
Get Help Israel provides English-speakers with access to verified mental health specialists as well as resources and information on navigating the mental health system in Israel.
NEFESH: The International Network of Orthodox Mental Health Professionals has an online directory of Orthodox therapists, primarily in the US and Israel.
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.
Prenuptual and Postnuptual Agreements
Beth Din of America Prenup endorsed by the RCA (Rabbinical Council of America)
Prenuptual Arbitration Agreement by Rav Zalman Nechemia Goldberg (preferred by Nishmat’s Rav Yaakov Warhaftig)
Postnuptual Arbitration Agreement by Rav Zalman Nechemia Goldberg (preferred by Nishmat’s Rav Yaakov Warhaftig)
Heskem Lichvod Hadadi, a prenuptial agreement in popular use in Israel
The Organization for the Resolution of Agunot (ORA) works to eliminate abuse from the Jewish divorce process through agunah case advocacy, early intervention programs, and educational initiatives for agunah prevention. ORA operates under the halachic guidance of Rabbi Herschel Schachter, Rosh Yeshiva at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS).
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!