Author: Yitzchok Adlerstein

We note with great sadness the petirah of one of the deans of the American rabbinate, Rabbi Maurice Lamm. My most vivid recollection of Rabbi Lamm is of the person who firmly put a...

In a new twist on the old “Jews to the back of the bus” routine, Donniel Hartman, president of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, wants the Jewish G-d to take a back seat...

I cannot imagine a better, succinct, even-keeled examination of global BDS than this. Not surprisingly, it was penned by a commentator without peer – Yossi Klein Halevi. Bookmark this one, and then give copies...

We don’t often see an effort by a beis din that ties together so many elements of the Orthodox community – Israel and the US; haredi and centrist. Sadly, it is a warning to...

Tikvah for bnei Torah is back for a third year, which we hope will constitute a chazakah. A bein ha-zemanim residence program by application, it is designed for the student with serious yeshiva background...

I have known Rev. Ken Ulmer for some time, and I am not the only Orthodox Jew to have had the privilege. Bishop Ulmer, as he is known, heads up a huge black megachurch...

Rabbi Safran’s important piece stimulated a flood of comments and responses, the vast majority as of yet unpublished. Most fall into a few discrete categories, and might best be dealt with en masse. Here...

With considerable embarrassment I offer this entirely unnecessary review. Unnecessary, because the previous two volumes of the Rav Soloveitchik Chumash were earlier introduced to readers of Cross-Currents. Those two reviews are the two witnesses...

What do modern-day conversion and Yisro have in common? Not so much, according to the people I know. Records kept over many years by the beis din on which I sit (the RCC, in...

The custom of avoiding kitniyos (legumes – and others!) on Pesach survived a rocky start, and the smirks of our Sephardic brothers and sisters. Survive it did, and never have so many been so...