Statues of Limitation
It’s safe to say that many of us are less than exercised over the public debate about Confederate-era statues on public lands. It may animate those with a dog in the race, so to...
Author: Avi Shafran
The Peril of Partisanship
Among contemporary American life’s many negative influences on Torah-conscious Jews is a subtle one that is generally overlooked. We don’t need reminders of the pernicious impact of the surrounding society’s denial of eternal truths,...
Death of a Slogan
“Le roi est mort, vive le roi!” That’s the famous French declaration that was traditionally made when a monarch had breathed his last: “The king is dead. Long live the king!” Recent days have...
Name Game
A stylistically different but similar piece to a recent Hamodia one about “Open Orthodoxy”‘s dropping of that self-description, written for the Forward’s readership, can be read here.
The Bond of Shared Targethood
A rumination on black-Jewish relations, born of the recent Charlottesville rally, can be read here.
True Jews
You may know something about the Sicarii, or Sikari’im (or Sikrikim), the radical Jewish faction at the time of the destruction of the Second Beis Hamikdash. What you may not know is that their...
“Blood of the Right Sort”
During Germany’s accursed Third Reich, the U.S. immigration system severely limited the number of German Jews admitted to the country to about 26,000 annually. But even that quota was less than a quarter filled...
Remembering Leonard Fein, a”h
A remembrance of Leonard Fein, who was a dear friend of mine over many years, appears on Tablet, and can be read here
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...
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