Author: Special to Cross-Currents

by Rabbi Dovid Landesman I hate to always be the harbinger of discomforting tidings, but the older I get, the more pessimistic I become. Instead of being proud of the unprecedented growth of the...

by Rabbi Doron Beckerman In a previous post, I alluded to the fact that the current implementation of Kollel has “significant drawbacks”. Not being the focus of that essay, it seems that that that...

[Rabbi Ilan Feldman, rav of Beth Jacob Cong. in Atlanta (and son of Cross-Currents senior blogger Rabbi Emanuel Feldman) sent this letter to the dejected rabbanim of the Baltimore community after the JCC board...

by Rabbi Dovid Landesman First of all, my thankful appreciation to all of you for what turned out to be a stimulating, open and civil exchange of ideas in response to my posting The...

A critical caveat: Nothing in this submission should be taken as criticism of the Satmar position vis-a-vis Zionism and/or the State of Israel. I have no pretensions of being worthy of critiquing what is...

Harsh title, I know. But if Sefiras HaOmer has been designated a time to learn from what happened to the 12,000 pairs of students of Rabbi Akiva, I think we would be remiss in...

by Jeff Jacoby Arlen Specter would never have made it into Profiles in Courage. Unlike the senators described in John F. Kennedy’s book — men who remained true to their principles, even when it...

[Rabbi Dovid Landesman is a veteran mechanech and the mechaber of a sefer on Netziv.] Today – Yom ha-Zikaron L’chayalei Tzahal – is one of the most difficult days for me in the calendar...

Chief Rabbi (UK) Sir Jonathan Sacks [The following piece appeared in the Times of London late last month. In the mind of one of the senior contributors to this blog, it is as good...

[by Rabbi Meyer May, Executive Director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and President of the Rabbinical Council of California. This letter was hand-delivered to President Bush a few days ago. The text also appears...