Unclaimed Baggage
In early August, the New York Sun published an editorial about the apparent anti-Israel bias of the group Human Rights Watch (HRW). Among other things, the group’s executive director, Kenneth Roth, accused the Jewish...
Category: Jewish World
First Rabbis Ordained in Germany Since Holocaust
I saw this first the Washington Post, but it’s in the JPost as well: “The first rabbis since the Holocaust were ordained in Germany on Thursday, the latest marker in the gradual return of...
To Save a Life
Today’s Washington Post has the story of Waitstill and Martha Sharp, “only the second and third U.S. citizens named to a [U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum] honor roll of 21,000 ‘righteous’ gentiles, non-Jews who risked...
Regrettably, I Will be Unable to Attend
When I received a FAX this morning about an “Erev Rosh Hashanah Havurah Dinner,” I assumed it was a reader alerting us to the latest evidence of how far our people have wandered. The...
Hillel Halkin and the Drift of Conservative Judaism
Hillel Halkin concludes an interesting memoir of his teenage years in the current Commentary Magazine with a line about his father, who was a professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary to the effect (quoting...
A General Theory of Just About Everything
Now that recluse mathematician Grigory Perelman has proven Poincaire’s Conjecture, only a few longstanding conundrums remain to be solved. To name two: Why do Western societies inevitably tend towards appeasement? Why has anti-Semitism migrated...
A Poignant Tribute
“Jameel” sent me a link to the tribute he wrote in memory of Nancy Morgenstern HY”D, who was at her desk at Cantor Fitzgerald on the 104th Floor when the aircraft hit World Trade...
A “Prophecy” Sadly Fulfilled
Mindful of the Talmudic teaching that after the destruction of the First Holy Temple the only semblance of prophecy resides in children and fools, and well aware of my age, I should hesitate before...
Statistics, Lying Statistics, and Readers Digest
This post started out as an aside to an earlier discussion, concerning the chassid escorted off a Canadian plane because passengers became alarmed seeing him wrapped in his Talis. Frequent commenter Boruch Horowitz pointed...
Israel’s Judicial Oligarchy Continues
Aharon Barak’s hand-picked successor, Dorit Beinisch, has been appointed the next President of Israel’s Supreme Court — to the great surprise of no one. This makes it overwhelmingly likely that the Court will continue...
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