Notes From a Hollywood Dinner
The key to a successful fund-raiser in our community is often the choice of honorees. You look to find people connected enough that their friends will attend (and contribute) in droves. If you are...
Author: Yitzchok Adlerstein
Insight Into a Perfidious Mind
Richard Goldstone condemned 28 black people to death while serving as a judge in apartheid South Africa, according to Yediot Achronot (as cited by the Jerusalem Post). We could have expected a denial. He...
The Goals of Kiruv – a View From the Past
What are the goals of kiruv? What kind of change should offer the mekarev some sense of accomplishment? I remember debates about this years ago at AJOP conventions, where kiruv professionals gathered for chizuk...
Torah Always Matters
This was not an easy blogging week. The issue of women’s ordination brought some sharp divisions within the community into focus, including fundamentally different conceptions of halachic process and authority. Surprisingly, the most jarring...
The Day the RCA Became Agudah
Not in the way you think. This is written in praise of the RCA, not to score points for Agudah. (I wouldn’t take sides – I have a high regard for, and work with,...
The RCA Resolves Against Ordaining Women
From the press release: In light of the opportunity created by advanced women’s learning, the Rabbinical Council of America encourages a diversity of halakhically and communally appropriate professional opportunities for learned, committed women, in...
Let’s Not Institutionalize Mediocrity
[This post is a response to a comment by Dr Meir Shinnar to a previous post.] No, no, a thousand times no. We do not misunderstand. And we do not challenge the fact that...
Preaching to a Very Mixed Choir
What do you tell a gathering of clerics, when they give you about a minute, and others can be expected to offer some PC drivel? Speaking at the World Summit Of Religious Leaders Forum...
How to Produce Quality Wine in Israel
When the first bottle of Rothschild’s Rishon Le-Tzion wine was brought to the Netziv by courier, he was more than happy to receive it – but he refused to taste of it. First, he...
Of Rabas and Maharats
I’ve held my silence for weeks about the Maharat issue, mostly because I have felt that it is so critical an issue, that it deserved a magisterial treatment by someone in a higher place,...
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