Refreshing, If Long Overdue
Several weeks ago, I wrote a short post providing an example of Israel’s media twisting the words of Charedi protesters, turning a quote from Torah and Halacha into a perverse call for the death...
Author: Yaakov Menken
The Last Taboo: Intermarried Rabbis
“In the Mix” is the name of a monthly column by Julie Wiener, carried by the NY Jewish Week. Ms. Wiener describes herself as “married to a lapsed Catholic — one who has encouraged...
Baron Jonathan Sacks
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the British Empire, has been appointed a Life Peer by the House of Lords Appointments Commission. A life peer is given the rank of Baron among British nobility,...
Administrative: Twitter Feed
For those who are interested, Cross-Currents now has a Twitter account, so you can “follow” us and be automatically apprised of any new updates. It’s automatic, so all new posts should come to you...
My Day in Court
Yesterday found me at the District Court of Maryland, Traffic Division, to fight a parking ticket. We had received a “Warning Notice” for failure to respond to a citation that we had never received,...
Creative Mistranslation
While the weekly demonstrations against municipal Sabbath desecration in Jerusalem are in all the Israeli papers, only the Jerusalem Post has an “ultra-“inflammatory headline: “Haredi protesters: Shabbat desecraters must die!” You won’t find anything...
Fear of G-d’s Name
No, it’s not what you think. I am not referring to a healthy (and Biblically-mandated) fear of G-d and his Ineffable Name, but an aversion to mentioning G-d as a motivating force in our...
Filling an Imagined Void
Rabbi David Mark of Temple Sholom in Pompano Beach, Florida, is anxious to fill a void. “There was a need out there among the public for something like this,” he said. “It hurt me...
A Personal Touch
In the wake of the shooting attack at Washington’s Holocaust Museum last week, many organizations issued public statements. Most of those were similar to these words from President Obama: “This outrageous act reminds us...
Unpleasantly Right
While I contemplated writing this article before hearing from Rabbi Oberstein that he wanted to send his remarks as well, I believe that our two perspectives together provide yet more fodder for dialogue. Here,...
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