No Hekhsher, Not Tzedek
(The Jewish Observer, September, 2008/Elul 5768) According to Chazal (Nedarim, 40a), ideas that on the surface seem entirely constructive can in truth be quite the opposite. A contemporary case in point is the effort...
Author: Avi Shafran
Be Forewarned: Non-Posted Posting!
I received a good amount of mostly encouraging feedback on my lengthy “Oversize Posting” of last week, and several suggestions that I reformulate the essay for a non-believing reader. I have indeed done that,...
Untruth in Advertising
Thanks all the same but no, I’d prefer my next party not be “the talk of the town.” The advertisement promising town-wide tittering over my gala affair was for a Jerusalem hotel, and appeared...
Be Forewarned — Oversize Posting!
This is an unusual posting for this venue, no obvious relative of the short essays I post weekly. Clicking on “more” below will take you to a long article I worked on over the...
Tangled Up In Jews
Anti-Israel diatribes spring from Iran’s leaders like fleas from a dog, but a recent Iranian Parliament statement stood apart, containing as it did a remarkable admission. The statement was in reaction to a comment...
Judge-And-Jury Journalism
Like an amusement park barker inviting passers-by to step right up and throw balls at some unfortunate’s head sticking through a hole, The New York Times editorial page seems to have been calling on...
The Jewish Week’s “Haredi Problem”
In a recent column, “Haredim: Underdogs or All-Powerful?”, the New York Jewish Week’s editor, Gary Rosenblatt, writes of a complaint he received from a reader, Chaim, about the paper’s coverage of, and commentary on,...
Good Things Happen
Like so much in our world that seems genuine at first, the photograph that graced the front pages of some of the nation’s most respected newspapers earlier this month was in fact a fake....
Horribly Wrong
Sometimes a word or set of words is just so jarring, so inappropriate or so cruel that it causes actual pain. Jewish religious law forbids such language to Jews as ono’at d’varim pain-causing words....
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