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...
Category: Judaism
Rabbi Twerski’s Bombshell at AJOP
I’ve fallen terribly behind in offering our readership a report on the annual convention of the Association of Jewish Orthodox Programs (AJOP). I posted one piece on Rabbi Lowenbraun’s decision to test the feasibility...
Trembling Before Rashi
By Shaul Gold One of the defining moments in the development of my hashkafas hachaim (outlook on life) occurred during a Shiur Klali (weekly lecture) I attended as a talmid in Yeshivas Mir Yerushalayim....
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...
Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth, A Thankless Child Author
If The Atlantic’s Sandra Tsing Loh were to suddenly disappear, I would have less to rail against. Then again I would lose a favorite model of effective creative writing. I would also lose an...
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...
Hate Speech at the Forward
Hatred. No, “blind hatred,” a “hatred so visceral that anything the man supports must be bad, wrong, and shot down,” because he’s “anti-American, anti-Semitic, or a baby-killing godless Communist.” It’s an “all-encompassing” hatred. It’s...
Recent Comments