Compromising on “Principle”
“Those are my principles!” famously declared Groucho Marx. “And if you don’t like them, well… I have others.” Principles are important, to be sure. But Groucho wasn’t entirely wrong. There are principles… and there...
Author: Avi Shafran
A Burning Issue
Sybil Sage, a Jewish writer and artist living in New York, asked her son if he minded her plans to have her and his father cremated. “How about I make urns for Dad and...
Hearing Voices
So many tears shed, so many words spoken, so many hearts twisted tight over the weeks, now, since the horrific, confounding, harrowing murder of Leiby Kletzky, a”h. With that distance of days, though— while...
Blasting the Borough Park Shomrim
One of the regular weekly features I write for Ami Magazine is a “News and Analysis” piece. Although I don’t usually post those offerings here on Cross-Currents (and even though Marvin Schick posted a...
The Heavens Are the L-rd’s
Those of us old enough to remember July 20, 1969—when human beings first walked on the moon—recall, too, our sense of amazement over the “one small step for man” that came to mark the...
Agudath Israel statement on reporting suspicions of child abuse
Agudath Israel of America has received several inquiries in the wake of misleading claims that have recently been made about our stance on reporting suspected child abusers to law enforcement authorities. We take the...
Handwriting Analysis: Science or Snow Job?
As a boy growing up in the 1960s, I became intrigued with handwriting analysis. It’s an intriguing notion, an almost obvious one: our character traits are subtly expressed in our handwriting. Every person is...
Another Breach in the Wall
For a number of years, in my role as Agudath Israel of America’s media liaison, I attended an annual gathering, each year in a different city, of Jewish periodical editors and writers. Over time,...
On the Petira of Leiby Kletzky, z”l
My apologies for not posting this early yesterday, when it was issued. AS STATEMENT FROM AGUDATH ISRAEL OF AMERICA Along with all of Klal Yisroel, Agudath Israel of America joins in deeply mourning the...
Where Less Can Be More
“Can she have a cookie with a Pentagon-K on the box?” the voice on the phone asked and, after receiving my polite but negative response (a Pentagon-K?—now the Defense Department’s in the kashrus business?...
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