Islamist Historiography
Last week, I was privileged to attend a lecture by Bernard Lewis at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The audience greeted the nonagenarian scholar with a degree of reverence and adulation that probably no...
Category: Israel
Burning Issue — The Revised Version
At Agudath Israel of America, before taking a political or social stance, launching a new effort or offering educational material, we look to our rabbinic leadership for guidance. Although we obviously do not bother...
Heroic Measures
A recent report from Jenin got me thinking. Residents of the West Bank city have hung a large picture of Saddam Hussein in the refugee-quarter’s central square. A local commander of the Fatah-aligned Al...
Corrosive Corruption
I was quietly studying chapter 1 of the prophet Isaiah when from the holy text there leaped headlines from the Jerusalem Post, Haaretz, Maariv, Yediot, as well as the major newspapers of the West:...
The Neturei Karta Cancer
This past week’s Baltimore Jewish Times sported the second editorial, just since December, on the Neturei Karta. Notably, the editors chose “Haredi Hang-Ups” as the title, although the article was not about charedim, but...
The Bais Yaakov Edicts – Are We Next?
Asked about just how stringent one should be in certain areas, Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky zt”l would often apply the same formula. “Men darf zein normahl (One has to be….normal!)” I imagine that his conception...
A Torah Revolution in Need of Troops
There are currently 800 secular Jewish women in Israel looking for a chareidi woman with whom to learn Torah over the phone, and no study partner available. “Couldn’t be,” you’ll say. But, unfortunately, it...
OU’s Statement on the Passing of President Ford
The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, the nation’s largest Orthodox Jewish Umbrella organization mourns the death of former President Gerald R. Ford. Mr. Ford, our country’s 38th president, took office amid tremendous...
Let Them Put on Tefillin
by Rabbi Dovid Eliezrie Menelaus would have been proud. He was the Hellenistic high priest installed by Antiochus who championed the battle against traditional Jews that brought about the holiday of Hanukka. Not much...
Americans and Israel
The Slonimer Rebbe (Chanuka, pg. 38) observes that the symbolism of the approaching holiday of Chanuka includes the notion that illumination breaks through specifically from darkness. Both the community and every individual Jew must...
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