Seizing the Lull
A memory from when I was a teen remains vivid. A middle-aged fellow had come to shul one Thursday morning because he had yahrtzeit. The shul hosted a mixture of Jews, some “frum from...
Category: Jewish World
How to Teach Propaganda
Professor Amy Kaplan at the University of Pennsylvania explains to faculty how to inculcate hatred for Israel into the college curriculum — even if the course in question has nothing to do with politics...
Strafing or Sanctions?
There isn’t a sane person on the planet—at least if evil counts as insanity—who doesn’t wish for Iran to be forced to abandon its nuclear ambitions (or to have them vaporized by one or...
The Gorilla’s Lesson
The little boy was petrified, as one might imagine, by the gorilla who sat down next to him at the table in his (the child’s) home. I hadn’t meant to scare the kid; I...
The Times, It Ain’t A-Changing
I can’t pride myself on having a good long-term memory (as my wife can attest, that’s an understatement), but a February 1 New York Times article did spur my sluggish hippocampus. The Times article...
Memories of the Family Dinner
I had not gotten very far in the new issue of Klal Perspectives before being enveloped in warm, fuzzy memories of my childhood. The subject of the issue is changing gender roles in the...
Islamophobia as an Offensive Weapon
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is calling for the dismissal of New York City Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly and the appointment of an outside inspector-general to run the police. CAIR and other...
The Super Bowl Maariv
On the morning of the recent Super Bowl football game, a shul in New Jersey sent out this e-mail to its membership: There will be a minyan for Maariv at __________ Synagogue (name deliberately...
An Open Letter to Deborah Feldman
by Rabbi Yaakov Rosenblatt Dear Deborah, Your book, Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of my Hasidic Roots, touched a lot of nerves and unsettled a lot of hearts in the Orthodox Jewish community. It is...
Give Gays a Chance
(A slightly edited version of this article appears, under a different title, in the February 24 issue of the Forward) The recent mini-drama of Rabbi Aryeh Ralbag’s suspension as chief rabbi of his native...
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