Author: Avi Shafran

Empowering Ehrlichkeit

If you live in New York City and order a sliced bagel (unlike if you ordered it uncut), you owe sales tax on the item. And if you bought gasoline in New Jersey, you...

Time to Come Home

An article I wrote back in 2001 for Moment Magazine, a Jewish periodical, was not well-received at the time in some circles. Understandably. The article’s thesis was that the Conservative movement’s claim to halachic...

In a Sane World…

Have you heard about the white family in Chicago that routinely vilifies the members of the black one across the street, calling them vile names, demanding that they move and hurling rocks through their...

CNN’s New Low

One needn’t be a Trumpaholic to know that certain media have a way of “reporting” that undermines truths. Take a recent CNN headline: “Christian man prays with Jerusalem Muslims as religious tensions flare.” The...

Arab Vs. Arab

Right off the bat, let’s get one thing straight: It’s pronounced something like “gutter,” with the stress on the first syllable and the “g” a bit harder than the one in that English word,...

“Mr.” to Us

Something recently reminded me of one of the many lessons I was privileged to be taught by Rav Yaakov Weinberg, zt”l, who served as Rosh Yeshivah of Yeshivas Ner Yisroel in Baltimore. As an...

Demographics Denial

The italics in the following seven paragraphs’ phrases are mine. A Haaretz column headline, in the wake of the Israeli cabinet’s decision to not upend the status quo at the Kosel: “Netanyanu to American...

Not in Our Name

What are we, chopped liver? The question, from my Orthodox corner of the American Jewish world, is born of the recent onslaught of outrage aimed at the Israeli government by representatives of “American Jewry.”…...

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