Is there a Sephardic Miqweh culture?

... And if there is, why didn't I grow up with one? See this article:

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Belief and the traditional sephardi

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    An acquaintance of mine, a traditional Sephardi whom we will call Orna, is having some difficulties at home. Her two young adult son's have gone "chozer b'tshuva, "  Breslev. The younger one in particular seems to have engaged in particularly outrageous behavior; destroying some of his parent's property that didn't meet his religious standards; which to me indicates prior issues in this family. So one day Orna asked me, what is the "correct" belief: Is the entire Torah from God at Mount Sinai or only the ten commandments? And she told me not to beat around the bush or give her any gobbledygook about there being multiple opinions. Smart woman. I hemmed and hawed and had to inform her that the traditional acceptable belief is that the entire Torah was given from God to Moses at Sinai. "Aha!" she said. "so my son was right!" It seems that the son had accused his parents of not being good Jews; based on their belief i...
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Biblical Theology v. Prophets History

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The book of Judges (along with some other of the prophets) often provides the historical kernel for the incidents in the Humash. One story that has got a lot of attention in this regard is the harrowing story of Pilegish BGibeah, juxtaposed with the story of Sodom. I will not go through all the parallel details, others have done that just as well as I can or better (not the least Ramban albeit with different conclusions). But the primary contrast, the ending; has been ignored. The ending is that the woman dies, and a civil war breaks out resulting in the near genocide of an entire tribe. There is no reason to doubt this as historical. This is raw, real life, as we know it to this day. Justice? What justice? The innoccent women was gang raped and died; and an nearly an entire tribe was killed, in revenge for the actions of the few.  Fast forward to Sodom. Nobody gets raped or killed and the potential male victims turn out to be angels who quickly shuttle the other wou...
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A Single Rabbanit?

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As previously discussed; everyone agrees that Rabbis are male, right? And so the great debate arose amongst liberal jewry on what to call the anomaly of a female rabbi in hebrew. I once heard someone referred to as "Reb Jill." The conservative movement insisted that a woman rabbi was a rav. As in "הרב תעביר דרשה".  The Liberal Orthodox came up with a number of obscure phrases, such as "congregational intern," and then "Maharat (an acronym of something for other)." But it seems the Reform movement won out in the end with their most grammatically correct "Rabbah." Of course they beat out the bunch because they had the following Biblical prooftext supporting them: "רבות בנות עשו חיל, והטלית על כולנה". But all these women candidates for female religious leadership had one thing in common. They all agree that they are not Rabbaniyot. And that's too bad. Traditionally, the Rabbanit is the Hebrew word for the Rabbi...
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