Author: Avi Shafran

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...

Truth Is Attractive

It wasn’t a phone call the head of the Union for Reform Judaism ever wanted to get. Taglit-Birthright was calling, with bad news. In the U.S., the “Taglit” (“discovery”) part of the name of...

Gezunt or Glucophobia?

Have you been following the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s advice to drink three cups of milk a day, to get enough calcium and vitamin D? No? Good for you. Multiple studies show that there...

Veiter Simchos

My brother, a rebbe in Yeshivas Ner Yisroel’s Mechina high school, and his wife, the daughter of the legendary Menahel Rav Yosef Tendler, z”l,were recently blessed with two new grandsons. Both were named Simcha...

Peter Beinart’s Orthophobia

Below is my original draft of a piece I wrote for Forward.  The article as it appeared there, though, was substantially edited, and several sentences that I think are important were omitted.  So I...

Of Bump Stocks and Background Checks

The landscape of Devin P. Kelley’s life was a veritable forest of red flags. Mr. Kelley, who last week shot to death 26 worshippers in a Texas church and wounded some 20 others, over...

The Price of Tea in Uzbekistan

As commuters made their way home from lower Manhattan last Tuesday evening, the police presence was strong, complete with heavily armed officers, helicopters and dogs. At that point, no one knew if the man...

Pin It on Pinterest