Ripe Citrons and Ruby Slippers
On the first day of Sukkos, after tens of thousands of Jews had paid princely sums for flawless specimens of a particular citrus fruit, payments were made by others, too, for a very different...
Category: General
Ivanka Trump Got Me Thinking about Shabbat
Several statements by Ivanka Trump stimulated me to rethink my own Shabbat observance. The 35-year-old daughter of US president elect Donald Trump converted to Judaism seven years ago. She said that she and her...
Vote-Buying, 2016
For all but the most starry-eyed devotees, or family members, of an aspirant to public service, voting essentially boils down to deciding which evil is lesser. Well, that’s a bit harsh. What I mean...
Greetings!
“How do you say ‘the horse died’ in Yiddish?” asked the African-American panhandler to whom I had given a quarter when he accosted me in lower Manhattan. It was many years ago, shortly after...
Commanded
Just in time for Rosh Hashanah, a number of media, including the Wall St. Journal and the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, found a good “Jewish” story in the popularity and abundance of dogs in Tel...
Shock Treatment
It’s a truth not universally acknowledged that good can come from bad. As Iyov said, “Who can bring purity from impurity, not the One?” (14:4; see Targum Yonasan). An untruth almost universally asserted is...
The Power of a Place
Somewhere on earth there may be a more fractious, violent, convulsed and combative place than the Iraqi city of Fallujah, west of Baghdad. But it’s not likely. Currently, Fallujah is in the news because...
Letter in the New York Times
The Opinion Pages | LETTER Single-Sex Swimming Pool JUNE 6, 2016 To the Editor: Re “Everybody Into the Pool” (editorial, June 1): Far from being “unmoored” from the Constitution, offering sex-segregated hours at public...
Ferry Tale
Sitting among other commuters in the cavernous terminal, waiting for the next ferry from Staten Island to Manhattan, I sensed some commotion in my periphery. Looking up from my reading, I saw a 40-ish...
And the Winner Is…
“Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser,” the famous, and famously blunt, General George S. Patton declared in a 1944 speech. “When you were kids,” he explained, “you all admired the...
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