Journalism and Sausages
Some reporters have punished me over the past few years, for doing something they don’t like—asking that they pose their questions by e-mail. Some background: As the media liaison for Agudath Israel of America,...
Author: Avi Shafran
A Second Salvo at Obama
In his editorial last week, Ami’s editor Rabbi Yitzchok Frankfurter raised an important point about religious Jews’ presidential election priorities. An interview he conducted earlier this summer included assertions about President Obama that, were...
Sour Gripes
Like pretty much all publicity, the heavy reportage of the Siyum HaShas at MetLife Stadium earlier this month was something of a two-edged sword. Over the weeks since the Siyum, awareness of the event...
Holocaust, Holocaust, Holocaust…
When Palestinian Authority presidential adviser Ziad Al-Bandak paid his respects recently at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum called the Palestinian’s visit there “a marketing of a false Zionist alleged tragedy.” A...
The Case Against Obama
Last week’s four day joint US-Israel naval exercises in the Mediterranean Sea, which were boycotted by Turkey and included the sort of guided-missile destroyers that could theoretically help defend Israel against Iranian missiles, formed...
What Was Happening There
With a few predictable exceptions, media coverage of the mammoth recent Siyum HaShas at MetLife Stadium was remarkably positive. Yes, the New York Times tried hard to find some woman at the event who...
We Are Not The World
Chanukah is far from most minds these days, understandably. And yet symbols of the societal showdown that yielded its commemoration lie before us. In a particularly conspicuous “we run and they run” display, the...
Friends Don’t Let Friends Write Bunk
It is painful to publicly criticize something written by a dear friend. But improper public words require a public response. I have known Chanan Gordon for years and deeply admire his passion to bring...
The Small Matter of 1929
July 9, 2012 Parragon Books Ltd [email protected] To Whom It May Concern: I am writing as the public affairs director of a national Jewish organization, Agudath Israel of America, whose Education Affairs division services...
On The Front Line
Like mosquitoes dive-bombing a rock, a swarm of writers are waging a spirited, ineffectual, attack on human free will. One observer of the spate of recent books arguing that people are biological automatons, James...
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