Category: General

On Friday, Shira Schmidt took Eytan Kobre to task for his earlier post “deriding the Conservative movement’s current quandry.” Her view is that help, understanding and a “life-preserver” are preferable to derision or a...

24 bAdar What do you do when you enjoy a colleague’s witty, acerbic satire of other Jews, but you feel that perhaps one should not mock people, even if you believe their derekh is...

These photos of gedolim (world-class Torah luminaries) in their younger days should not be missed. They range from the late 19th century to the middle of the 20th, and contain several dimensions of surprise....

The NY Jewish Week covers the “largest PEJE conference ever.” PEJE is the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education, and the fact that this conference is large and growing can only mean good things....

Researchers at Emory University in Atlanta recently devised an interesting experiment to test the reasoning, or the lack thereof, of political partisans. Prior to the 2004 American presidential election, a group of Kerry supporters...

I am gratified that someone pointed out this column from the Jerusalem Post, called “What Conservative Judaism conserved.” It is relevant to other recent posts, of course, but also stands on its own. The...

My last post re Conservative clergy mulling homosexual ordination generated comment from several people who communicated their distaste for what I wrote. They raised issues that I feel I should address, and, indeed, I’ve...

The JTA headline on the recent World Zionist Organization elections says “WZO Elections Send Pluralist Message – But Who’s Listening?” Perhaps the reason why no one is listening is because that isn’t really the...

As I read about the latest decision by Conservatism to kick the can down the road regarding homosexual ordination, “marriage,” etc., and the ensuing donnybrook of recrimination and response unfolding within the movement, several...

Marc Hauser and Peter Singer, professor of psychology at Harvard and professor of bioethics at Princeton respectively, recently sought to prove in these pages that our sense of morality is the result of evolution,...