Dirty Harrys
Several decades ago, a senior official at the Conservative movement’s University of Judaism alerted the wider Los Angeles community by direct mailing to a new threat looming on the Jewish horizon. A growing number...
Category: Judaism
Hormonal Judaism
There is good kiruv and there is bad kiruv. After reading ‘You’ve been Aish’d…’ in the Jerusalem Post, even the bad kiruv starts to look better. It is a piece that alternates between silliness...
A World Going Ape
It’s easy to snickeringly dismiss the recent disclosure that the late hotelier Leona Helmsley not only left $12 million to her dog but nearly all of the rest of her estate – an estimated...
R. Michoel Ber Weissmandl on Honesty and the Holocaust
A reader submitted the following brief piece, which may or may not be relevant to the ongoing controversy about the derech of R. Shamshon Raphael Hirsch. It is offered here without comment or elaboration,...
The Post that Wasn’t
When I wrote two weeks ago that I was “back,” and hoped to resume posting more frequently, I also wrote that I planned a post on “Michael Bloomberg, Barack Obama, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance...
How to reply when the doorbell rings
Many years ago, while a rabbi in Atlanta, I answered a knock on my door one Shabbat afternoon. Standing in front of me was a fine-looking couple – obviously non-Jewish. “Shabbat Shalom, rabbi,” they...
How Jews Should Vote
Yes, Varda, there is a Jewish way to vote – or at least a genuine Jewish perspective to bring to political races like the current one for the American presidency. Some Jews would assert...
Two on Rav Hirsch, zt”l
The two pieces that follow deal, respectively, with the relevance of Rav Shamshon Raphael Hirsch for the relationship of Torah Jews to their fellow Jews and with what he still offers to Torah Jews...
Proud to be a Hirschian
“I don’t care what group you identify with, as long as you are ashamed of it.” There is much wisdom in the throw-away line with which Dennis Prager frequently challenges audiences to admit to...
Prisoner Exchanges
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has stated that Israel must do everything in its power to bring back Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, regardless of whether they are dead or alive. From his statement,...
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