Bernie’s Kibbutz and Mine
The disclosure of which kibbutz Senator Bernie Sanders spent time at in1963 was red meat for the voracious purveyors of what, regrettably, passes for political commentary these days. Mr. Sanders – now the first...
Category: Jewish World
The Agudah and YU: the Quiet Revolution and the New World Order
Call it a truce or call what it what you will, but the two movements seem somehow closer today than the way things appeared a generation ago. What, indeed, has happened here? What hath God wrought?
The American Jewish Buffet
“Secular Orthodox.” That’s how Avinoam Bar-Yosef, president of the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute, recently characterized many Israelis. What he meant was that, while an Israeli may not be observant of halachah, or even...
The Professor Stumbles
You just can’t, as they say, make this stuff up. A performer recently made news by implying that 1) Holocaust denier David Irving deserves reconsideration, and 2) that the earth is flat. The entertainer...
Western Walls
Many are celebrating the official setting aside and expansion of a part of the Kotel Maaravi for non-traditional public prayer. I’m not among them. My thoughts on the matter are in the Forward today....
Agudath Israel Reaction to the “Kotel Compromise”
Designating an area at the Kotel Maaravi for feminist and mixed-gender prayer not only profanes the holy site, it creates yet a further lamentable rift between Jews. For more than three decades, the Western...
Interview on Open Orthodoxy
The Israel Broadcasting Authority wanted both sides of the Open Orthodox story. This was the “other side.”
One More Kiddush HaShem, One Less Anti-Orthodox
A 19-year-old Belzer Yeshiva student returned 130,000 Shekels (nearly $33,000) found in a bag at a bus stop. Now one “anti-Charedi” no longer is.
Like the Face of a Dog
R’ Yisroel Salanter described modern politics quite accurately when he explained the Mishnah’s cryptic statement that “the face of the generation will be like the face of the dog.” Sadly, he described modern religion, too.
From the Mouths of Mexicans
I’ll call him Pedro; maybe it’s even his name. He seems to be a custodian of some sort for a shul – though I have no idea where it might be. He wears a...
Recent Comments