Category: General

Not having posted here since November 30, I feel obliged to put something up if only to demonstrate that reports of my blogospheric demise are at least somewhat exaggerated, even if it means contributing one...

Jack Abramoff emerges from the courtroom wearing a black fedora, and instantly the media pounce on the fact that he is an Orthodox Jew. If he were a Roman Catholic layman, would it matter...

23 bTevet Fifteen years ago I asked a rebbe in an Orthodox Jewish Day School in S. Diego [he has since moved elsewhere] what he would do to improve Jewish education if he had...

The sad story of a contemporary writer critical of the Vaad Hatzala and its Holocaust rescue work took a bizarre turn last week. Cross-Current readers get the inside story first. January 17, the anniversary...

Since our upgrade on January 2, the new Akismet spam blocker has prevented over 1000 spams from getting into the moderation queue. That’s in under three weeks. In that time it only let 2...

From Rabbi Avi Shafran, Am Echad Resources “One of the 613 Mitzvot is ‘Tikkun Olam,’ to heal or repair the world,” declares the Social Action Committee of a Massachusetts temple. The assertion is characteristic...

My correspondent, who pointed out the case going on in California that I wrote about yesterday, sent a new email today: Rabbi Menken, re: Calvary Chapel suit and your C-C post on it, I...

Unlike other of our handiwork that may have ethical implications – medical advances and design of clothing come to mind – technological innovations inherently are ethically neutral. Much of what we now take for...

Yes, Rev. Pat Robertson has apologized, but one question remains: why were Israeli officials so incensed at him for suggesting that Sharon has been punished because he willingly surrendered part of the Holy land...

In an earlier post, I published the sharp but friendly remarks that we traded, on camera (so to speak) and off.  I took up the challenge to offer a halachic defense of the permissibility...