Author: Yaakov Menken

3

Israel Needs Your Voice

Here’s a moment of worthwhile hishtadlus, necessary effort, to add to our prayers for Israel. As reported in The Hill: House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) later this...

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George Bush’s Finest Moment

Nivul peh, vulgar language, is always something to avoid. But on balance I can’t help being impressed by George Bush’s private remark to Tony Blair, which was caught on an open microphone. Expressing his...

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Thank you, Akismet!

Since installation, the Akismet spam blocker for WordPress has killed off over 10,000 spam comments sent our way. In 2005 we had text displayed in a distorted graphic that you had to type. It...

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Is Olmert out of his depth?

This morning in Israel, Hizbullah terrorists came across the border from Lebanon and kidnapped two Israeli soldiers. Israel PM Ehud Olmert’s immediate reaction was as dramatic as it was clear and unequivocal: this was,...

31

Off the Derech: Are We Retaining Our Youth?

Yesterday, at the end of a post criticizing Yossi Beilin’s call for new methods to “enable non-religious non-Jews to become non-religious Jews,” I made the following closing remarks: Like many others, Beilin has forgotten...

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Now in Style: Traditional Jewish Burial

Now that Jews across America have adopted non-Jewish burial customs — elaborate, indestructable caskets, embalming, above-ground burial (mausoleums), even cremation (a custom first practiced on Jewish dead in Central Europe, roughly 65 years ago)...

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The Media Gets it Right

The above cartoon makes me feel that Israel’s conduct against the terrorist government of the PA — and davka (specifically) Israel’s intransigence about negotiating for the release of Gilad Shalit, Gilad ben Aviva —...

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Engaging the Orthodox

Rabbi David Eliezrie has an opinion piece in this week’s Forward — Bring Orthodox to Communal Table. As he points out, it’s a two-way street. The “mainstream” Jewish organizations are slow to reach out...

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Yisrael Valis: The Court Transcript

Unbelievable. We already know that the officer saw things that no medical examiner was able to see — e.g. not merely bite marks, but “pinch marks.” But the whole allegation that Valis confessed to...

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