Author: Yitzchok Adlerstein

No big deal, they said. The new Pew Report offered few surprises. The 2013 report showed an American Jewish community looking like a patient with multiple systems failure; the current report showed vital signs...

As a woman in a shiur I gave on Shabbos put it, Yom Yerushalayim, sadly, has become the exclusive province of the Dati Leumi community here in Israel. Secular Jews have lost interest; charedim...

For decades, more education was presumed to be the antidote to anti-Semitism. People with more years of education showed less hostility to Jews in survey after survey. Jews and their non-Jewish allies placed their...

Silly, you say. I’m not Yanky because my grandfather is not R. Chaim, shlit”a. You’re showing your age. Today, you can be whatever you want, just by identifying. If I wanted to, I should...

It is with profound sadness that I announce the petirah of one of the gems of our generation, Rabbi Dr. Avraham Yehoshua Heschel Twerski, zt”l. The shock is too great and too sudden for...

A comment I received on my recent tribute to Rabbi Jonathan Sacks z”l is important enough to deserve a more thorough response than usual. You’ll find the comment below, followed by my long reply...

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, z”l One could have spent all day Sunday reading the tributes to Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks and still not finished them. Without examining their content, the sheer volume of laudatory...

It has been the best of times, and the worst of times, for Torah Judaism. We’ve seen strong, sensible leadership in parts of the community, and failed leadership elsewhere. We’ve seen the resilience of...

“First, know evil.”[1] Rabbenu Bachya argues that good is easily compromised by forces that tarnish and degrade it. Unless a person learns about them, his goodness he develops will be endangered. Better to first...

A young man was mindful of the advice he received about jump-starting conversation with a date. He had already struck out with the first two suggestions: asking about family, or about food. (No, she...