Author: Avi Shafran

Wealth Management 101

A fantastic recent essay in the New York Times brought to mind a fantastic Talmudic narrative. The latter [in Tamid 32b] describes the would-be world-conqueror Alexander the Great approaching the gates of the Garden...

The Road to Heil

If ever there were a question to inspire ambivalence it might be whether the current push in Israel to outlaw the word “Nazi” and Holocaust-era German symbols is a good idea. On the one...

A Note of No Great Consequence

Over the years I have written a few short stories and poems, only one of which I have shared with the public (in a book I published in 1981). I’ve decided to post some...

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...

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