Swearing off the “U” Word
Does affirmation of the Jewish religious heritage… make haredim “extremist”? Considering the other candidates for that word today?
Author: Avi Shafran
Messages in the Mayhem
You’ll log many a mile to find someone more disapproving than I am of the anger and vilification that characterize so much of American political discourse. But to lay the tragic January 8 shooting...
Jewish Traits Gone Bad
I have long suspected that the Jewish stereotypes invoked by comedians, impolite pundits, and anti-Semites contain some grain of truth. After all, even a powerfully positive middah, or personal trait, can, if mangled or...
Getting a Second Opinion
We are all poorer for not realizing that greater gain is to be had from meeting another point of view than from exulting in having one’s own opinions duly seconded.
Missed Message
My dear and esteemed friend Jonathan Rosenblum has taken me to task in Yated Ne’eman for an Ami Magazine essay I wrote entitled “Our Not So Humble Opinions.” My thesis was that it behooves...
My friend Jonathan Rosenblum’s Critique
My dear and esteemed friend Jonathan Rosenblum has taken me to task in Yated Ne’eman for an Ami Magazine essay I wrote entitled “Our Not So Humble Opinions.” Both my essay and his critique...
Too Close for Moral Comfort
Reminiscent of another time and place, a Rosh Yeshiva in Bnai Brak reportedly received a letter stating “Stop sucking our blood and living on our backs… We’ll fight you physically and you will feel our might on your bodies and against your synagogues.”
Grime and Grandeur
After a moment’s walk, though, one is transported suddenly into another world, one of astounding power and beauty.
Our Not-So-Humble Opinions
So often we seem to feel a need to embrace absolute, take-no-prisoners political opinions; to reject any possibility of ambivalence, much less any admission of ignorance.
The Past in the Present
“I [had] promised [myself] that I would go to Bialystok and something was telling me – maybe it was because I was stubborn — I said I am going to yeshiva and I’m going to go.”
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