A Question About Aliya
I am writing this from Israel near the end of perhaps my one-hundredth trip. The first was in 1959. As a rule, I am here three times a year. We have an apartment in...
Category: Judaism
Rabbi Meir Soloveichik’s Stunning Invocation
Rabbi Meir Soloveichik’s invocation this evening at the Republican National Convention masterfully and elegantly highlighted themes and values that resonate with both Torah Jews and with a probable majority of Americans. In a brief...
Sour Gripes
Like pretty much all publicity, the heavy reportage of the Siyum HaShas at MetLife Stadium earlier this month was something of a two-edged sword. Over the weeks since the Siyum, awareness of the event...
Holocaust, Holocaust, Holocaust…
When Palestinian Authority presidential adviser Ziad Al-Bandak paid his respects recently at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum called the Palestinian’s visit there “a marketing of a false Zionist alleged tragedy.” A...
Aristotle, Shakespeare, and the Siyum HaShas
Do Greeks in the thousands gather early every morning to study the works of Plato and Aristotle? How many Britons study Shakespeare or John Milton every single day? Last month’s Siyum HaShas before 93,000...
Bris Milah in Europe
Several different strands are intertwined in trying to ties a noose around bris milah and shechitah on the Continent. They include classic anti-Semitism (which has lost its moral opprobrium), but are not limited to...
Klal Perspectives New Issue – Early Marital Breakups
Klal Perspectives (KP), Summer 2012, is now available for free download. It addresses the perception that there has been a tragic upswing in the numbers of early divorces with our community. KP assembles an...
What Was Happening There
With a few predictable exceptions, media coverage of the mammoth recent Siyum HaShas at MetLife Stadium was remarkably positive. Yes, the New York Times tried hard to find some woman at the event who...
Non-Orthodox Responses to the Siyum Daf Yomi
By the morning after the Siyum I had already traded messages with Rabbi Avi Shafran. I was intrigued by the participation of non-Orthodox Jews in the study of the Daf. Would those who committed...
Good Siyum HaShas Coverage
From WNYC New York, an outlet that covered the Siyum, and did it very well:
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