Author: Yitzchok Adlerstein

Question: What’s the difference between American Jewish leaders and Donald Trump? Answer: Trump will have Jewish grandchildren. Ouch. Pithily makes the point, doesn’t it? Reminds them who the real Jews are! Really draws the...

Perhaps because of the work I do with non-Jewish communities, I find myself constantly getting a boost from the observations of religious Gentiles about authentic Judaism. A recent exchange seemed too good not to...

Once again, a melange of material, including Chasam Sofer, Rav Kook, Rav Shamshon Raphael Hirsch, the Lubavitcher Rebbe. A good deal about davening in general. Some dreadful musings about where the world has been...

Read the article. Look at the pictures. Draw your own conclusions – including what to do about it.

This coming Wednesday, Sept. 28th, at noon. Women only Twice a year, in a nod to my previous existence in which I was able to give lots of shiurim, including a weekly parshah shiur...

You think this is a new problem? Think again. R. Moshe Cheifetz (Venice, late 17th, early 18th century) very often picks up on the juxtaposition of pesukim and phrases that seem to have little...

The news got out earlier today that YU’s search committee at arrived at a choice for a successor to President Richard Joel. Rabbi Ari Berman, a former spiritual leader of The Jewish Center in...

Who’s more likely to get us wrong – journalists far removed from our community and its thought, or academic scholars outside their field of competence? The answer should be obvious: a journalist from outside...

“If they understood the effect the chiming of the church bells had on the Jewish soul, they would never stop them.” So observed a Torah sage of a different generation, when the grandeur and...