Author: Avi Shafran

Aggravated Journalism

Hella Winston was surprised that her name appeared at the bottom of the recent New York Post report about the murder of Brooklyn businessman Menachem Stark, indicating her “additional reporting” to the story. She...

Obama and the (Orthodox) Jews

(The article below appeared earlier this month in Haaretz. I share it here with that paper’s permission.) The gabbai at the shul I usually attend on Shabbos is something of a comedian. When I...

Storied Lives

I used to have a chavrusah, or study partner, with whom I learned Torah annually. Yes, annually. Usually for about an hour or two. In a different city each year. The text we studied...

Where Are The Red Carpets?

The letter below appears in today’s (Jan 2) New York Times: To the Editor: I’m neither an “Israel right or wrong” person nor a supporter of what has come to be called “the Palestinian...

A Lesson From Limmud

Even now that the recent much-celebrated Limmud gathering in the historic cathedral town of Coventry, West Midlands, England has concluded, the celebration continues, at least in many Jewish media. The popular Jewish event, which...

Letter to the Editor of the NY Jewish Week

Below is the text of a self-explanatory letter to the editor of the New York Jewish Week; it is published in this week’s issue of that paper. December 21, 2013 Editor: Rori Picker Neiss...

What Were They Thinking?

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency, whose dispatches are widely reproduced both here in the United States and abroad, reported today on British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis having become the first sitting British chief rabbi to...

The Fact of the Matter

Several weeks ago, my wife and I had the pleasure of visiting Detroit (well, Oak Park, a suburb, and a solvent one), where two of our daughters and their husbands and their children live....

Too Little Information

At the Sheva Brachos festivities this past summer for the marriage of our youngest daughter, my wife and I heard many wonderful things about our newest son-in-law. Friends and relatives spoke about his impressive...

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