A Different Sort of Parting Shot
In 2004, Rabbi Adlerstein and I joined forces to create Cross-Currents, a journal at the intersection between Torah and current affairs. We did this because we realized that there was not a voice for opinion grounded in Torah, unfiltered by an often-hostile press—and we were inspired by the work that independent bloggers had done that year to counter falsehoods spread by mainstream media. We realized that a blog might help us find our own voice.
[For those who do not know or recall, in September 2004 independent blogs forced the CBS network to retract a false story accusing then-President George W. Bush of having failed to adequately perform his service in the Texas Air National Guard over three decades earlier. Dan Rather on 60 Minutes “substantiated” this claim with memos purportedly written in 1972, but Power Line and other blogs published proof that the documents were fraudulent: they were typed in a proportional font of a sort only possible with word processors first available in the 1990s, and in reality looked essentially identical to what Microsoft Word would produce in 2004 with its default settings. In the wake of the scandal, CBS fired several employees and declined to renew Rather’s contract, though he had been one of the nation’s leading news anchors.]
We and the writers collectively, via our agreements and disagreements, demonstrated and continue to demonstrate that observant Rabbonim can offer serious, cogent analysis and make a positive contribution to discussions of current events—something which the average person did not often see coming from the Torah community at the time.
Since then, of course, that community has grown exponentially, producing many more voices and outlets. Not least among these is the Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV), which I have served as Managing Director since its formation in 2017.
I would even suggest that it is through Cross-Currents (CC) that CJV came to be, because CC and Rabbi Adlerstein first introduced me to my CJV colleagues Rabbi Dov Fischer and Rabbi Avrohom Gordimer. Five years later, R’ Avrohom reached out to me and asked, based upon a discussion that he, R’ Dov, and others were having, what more could be done to offer an authentic Jewish voice, grounded in principles respected by all parts of the Torah world, but published in secular media. I responded then that in order to speak effectively, “we need to bring together a group… Call it the ‘Jewish Values Coalition’ or something like that.” And that is how CJV got off the ground.
Between the dramatic growth of CJV and my other obligations, Cross-Currents has been less and less my focus; I even failed to publish many of my recent articles here, though I just back-filled a few (interested parties can see my timeline). Certainly, I have not been moderating comments or screening guest contributions for inclusion—my steady reaction to a comment or complaint sent to me individually over the past few years has been to wonder what the email was about, given that I had not previously seen the post or comment that the correspondent had in mind. I don’t see this changing, given my other obligations.
With this in mind, I think it time that I step down from my role as co-editor of Cross-Currents, returning it to Rabbi Adlerstein’s full editorial supervision, as Cross-Currents was in its first, pre-online iteration. Please direct future correspondence and requests to him!
This is not, however, truly a “parting shot;” that was merely a take-off on the most recent post by Rabbi Adlerstein himself. I am merely passing off my share of the baton, and look forward to continuing to contribute my writings. Thank you for reading!
Photo credit: Tableatny on Flickr.
Thanks for this info, Rabbi Menken, and you have my best wishes for continued success at CJV. It’s important for the world to know that the many socialist fake rabbis don’t speak for us.
nor do politically conservative rabbis. Traditional, Halakhic Judaism provides its own perspective that is neither liberal nor conservative.
…but really, is conservative, both philosophically (as religions generally are, by definition) as well as under current political definitions. Anyone who claims otherwise is obfuscating for personal reasons.
That’s true only to an extent. If one follows traditional, Halakhic Judaism on the sanctity of life, the number of genders, the nature of a marriage, and a host of other social issues, one is pigeonholed as “conservative” and finds no home among those described today as “liberals.” Note that Joe Liberman was the Democratic nominee for VP in 2000 and was primaried out in 2006, requiring a unique third party to be re-elected.
Liberal values do not equal many current Democratic party values. Joe Lieberman was an authentic liberal. Conservative extremists on sanctity of life issues often are quite different than strictly halachik ones.
Whenever leftist causes parade hundreds of these “rabbis” in support of anti-Israel causes, we look really bad. It doesn’t matter if these are male, female, or some new option. You may find fault with political conservatives who are not completely on our wavelength either, but they are not much of a current problem, plus they are typically actual rabbis.
Good luck! I have to say though, I stopped following your articles when you stopped allowing reader responses.
Well, you see, this is part of the problem. There are other CC authors who don’t allow comments, but there isn’t an article of mine published in at least the last five years in which comments were closed. This literally never happened.
Do CC authors who allow comments moderate the comments on their own posts, or is this done uniformly for all?
Thank you, Rabbi Menken, for your involvement in Cross Currents over the years; I look forward to seeing your continued writing. Some comments:
“I would even suggest that it is through Cross-Currents (CC) that CJV came to be”
Perhaps I can widen the attribution for CJV by peeling back a layer of the CC onion to a meeting in Har Nof with the Novominsker Rebbe, as mentioned in an Beyond BT interview with Rabbi Adlerstein:
“While he may be surprised for the credit, Cross-Currents owes itself to the vision of the Novominsker Rebbe, shlit”a… He felt that it was important for Torah Jews to correct misconceptions, even if such attempts would convince no one…Am Echad was really born at that meeting. Among other ideas, he suggested a regularly published English language journal of creative and topical Torah thought whose target audience would specifically lie outside the traditional boundaries of the “insider” community…The idea remained in limbo until the ubiquitous use of the internet changed much of the calculus. Yaakov Menken kept pushing me to get involved in a blog…”
https://beyondbt.com/2008/03/03/interview-with-rabbi-yitzchak-adlerstein-who-will-be-in-kgh-shabbos-march-7th/
The Novominsker Rebbe’s ideas at the Har Nof meeting is also discussed here:
https://cross-currents.com/2006/08/29/blogging-%E2%80%93-an-alternative-mission-statement/
Speaking of thanks, I remember reading your 2021 Newsweek piece, “Giving Thanks Is Important, Spiritually and Patriotically,” which discussed the Jewish parallels to Thanksgiving including the comparison of Founding Fathers and the religious survivors of the Holocaust. You might consider reposting the article on CC before Thanksgiving; it’s 2 months, but never too early to plan 🙂
https://www.newsweek.com/giving-thanks-important-spiritually-patriotically-opinion-1650437
As I recall, Am Echad was initially an Agudah venture working with or through R’ Jonathan Rosenblum in Israel. What is the arrangement today?
Am Echad was created in the late 1990s following R. Moshe Sherer’s calls for a campaign to counter negative press generated from the religious pluralism controversy in Israel, though “despite its close ties to Agudath Israel, Am Echad is an independent organization and reflects the views of many Orthodox factions, not just Agudah’s”, per R. Avi Shafran in the 1997 JTA article below. The organization is still around(its current address is the same Lower Manhattan building as the Agudah).
Though Jonathan Rosenblum was at the Har Nof meeting where “Am Echad was really born” which I mentioned in my previous comment, I don’t think he has any official involvement in Am Echad. His organization is Jewish Media Resources, also founded in the late 90s. See links:
https://www.jta.org/1997/12/31/lifestyle/orthodox-ad-campaign-nixes-pluralism-promotes-education
https://www.amechadunited.org/
https://agudah.org/tag/am-echad
https://www.jewishmediaresources.com/aboutus.php
Wasn’t part of the Am Echad mission to improve the public image of its supporting communities? If so, did that happen?
Am Echad was a personal pet project of R. Sherer, who, as a product of his time, believed strongly in op-eds, letters to the editor, etc. It was never anything more than a DBA of Agudah. Why he thought it would fool anyone, or why he didnt want the lobbying done under the Agudah name, I dont know. It could be bc the Agudah had, or he thought it had, a reputation for high-minded religion, he didn’t want to sully its name by attaching it to meat and potatoes lobbying. Just a theory tho, I dont know.
Am Echad has had its successes. Public image, however, has both an internal and an external component. As an analogy, cosmetic and regular dentistry are both important, but preventative dental hygiene stops problems at their roots. Below are examples of focusing on the prevention component, from Agudah’s more-recent KnowUs division, the Jew in the City organization, and from the Living Kiddush Hashem curriculum.
Agudas Yisroel’s KnowUs division, somewhat similar to Am Echad, was founded approximately two years ago to combat the negative stereotypes about Orthodox Jews in media outlets like The New York Times in wake of the controversy over secular studies in NY yeshivas. Before this Tisha B’av, KnowUs organized a gathering in Boro Park regarding compliance with ethics and dina dmalchusa, because as noted in the letter below from R. Chaim Dovid Zwiebel, ” the time is ripe for us to take a good, hard look at our obligations to our fellows, to our society, to our government, and to rededicate ourselves to the ideal of creating kiddush Hashem rather than ch’v its opposite. Tomorrow night’s asifa is modeled upon similar Nine Days “V’asisa Ha’yashar V’hatov” gatherings a number of years ago.”
https://agudah.org/a-letter-from-rabbi-chaim-dovid-zwiebel
https://agudah.org/dina-dmalchusa-dina-event-inspires-and-informs-huge-crowd-in-boro-park
https://agudah.org/orthodox-jewish-advocates-launch-new-initiative-to-correct-dangerous-mischaracterizations-of-community-knowus
The “Jew in the City” organization and website, founded by Allison Josephs, is explicitly organized to address both the internal and external levels of public image issues. Mrs. Josephs writes in the first link below, “I came to realize something: the first two branches of our organization – fighting negative media portrayals of Orthodox Jews and helping Orthodox Jews who had been hurt in the system were coming about for the same reason: Orthodox Jews were behaving badly. It seemed logical that if we wanted to alleviate the work in our other two branches, we had to get into prevention.” Their three branches, including its recently added Hollywood Bureau, engage in, as per the second link:
— Repairing systemic issues from within – through our Tikun branch
— Rehabilitating and re-educating disenfranchised Haredi Jews – through our Makom branch
— Holding traditional media accountable for accurate reporting and depictions of Jews through its Hollywood Bureau and creating original positive Orthodox content – through our Keter branch.
https://jewinthecity.com/2021/03/the-secret-branch-of-jew-in-the-city-that-is-addressing-communal-issues/
https://jewinthecity.com/about/#mission
Rabbi Shraga Freedman, author of Artscroll’s “Living Kiddush Hashem,” developed an extensive Living Kiddush Hashem curriculum with Torah Umesorah. See link:
https://livingkiddushhashem.org/leadership/
Without Instapundit, no one would ever have heard of Power Line. For those who know, Instapundit (Glenn Reynolds) not only changed the 2004 elections, but he was the first real blow in the destruction of print media. His impact on American and hence world politics is staggering.
Power Line’s current team: https://www.powerlineblog.com/about-us
Power Line also flags interesting material from other sources, such as these links today:
https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/death-another-hezbollah-lifer
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/communism-rising/