Two Columns About Yiddish Words
Tablet Magazine recently ran two pieces I wrote about Yiddish words/phrases. They can be read here and here.
Author: Avi Shafran
Hazards, Hazards Everywhere
My first earthquake was, as you might imagine, unsettling. I was part of a yeshivah in Northern California in the 1970s, and my wife and I spent our first five years of marriage there,...
Remarkable Bordering on Incredible
Senator Orrin G. Hatch’s announcement of his retirement at the end of the year brought me back to the summer of 1995. That’s when I returned to my family’s former home of Providence, Rhode...
The Jewish Connection
The vandalism of a Fort Smith, Arkansas mosque in 2016 by three young local men wouldn’t seem to have any Jewish connection. But it did. Or, better, it turns out that it does. The...
Fake Kashrus
Long before candidate Donald Trump ever uttered the phrase “fake news,” some of us in the Jewish world involved with media were well acquainted with the concept. From The New York Times’ description at...
Window on the Warped
Interested in making a quick $14.88? Well, you might want to consider writing a racist or anti-Semitic article and submitting it to “The Daily Stormer,” one of the more famous neo-Nazi websites that sprout...
The Tragedy Of The Liberal Jewish Response To Rubashkin’s Release
An article of mine about the negative reactions of some in the Jewish community to the release of Sholom Rubashkin and the celebrations thereof, can be read here.
What IS Jerusalem?
Whether one regards President Trump’s declaration that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel as a dangerous and foolhardy move or wise and deeply principled, it cast a well-deserved bucket of cold water into the...
Agudath Israel on General Assembly Vote
Agudath Israel Statement on This Morning’s U.N. General Assembly Vote The countries that voted this morning in the United Nations General Assembly to demand that the U.S. rescind its recognition of...
Body and Soul
It sounds like a story about the fictional Chelm. The town philosopher sagely informs his fellow citizens that he has no face. He can’t perceive it directly, he points out, and besides, as anyone...
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