Category: Judaism

Alighting from the Staten Island ferry at Manhattan’s southern tip on my way to work February 5, I was greeted by a phalanx of stern-looking police, padded with Kevlar and armed with assault rifles....

Rebbetzin Esther Farbstein is a great woman in many ways. She is not only one of the chareidi world’s leading public intellectuals, but also a model of refined middos. Michlala Seminary of Jerusalem sponsored...

My friend Judea Pearl’s writing is frequently moving, and always incisive. On the yahrzeit of his son, Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl, HY”D, brutally slain in Pakistan six years ago, Dr. Pearl creates...

Mere days before I was privileged to participate in a Washington, D.C. symposium on religious freedom in Israel, the Malaysian government threatened to withhold a Catholic newspaper’s publishing permit, to punish it for having...

If buildings could speak, the message of Dallas’ new Ohr HaTorah shul is one of pride, confidence, and inclusiveness. Simply put, it is – architecturally – the most impressive building of a right-of-Orthodox-center shul...

Married mere days, David found himself seated at the head of a table with his new wife, in-laws and a host of strangers, including some rabbis with long beards. He wasn’t nervous around rabbis;...

I recently had an opportunity to speak at length with someone who has a broad familiarity with most of the institutions created in Israel to deal with chareidi kids who are outside of any...

Of all the stereotypes of charedim, probably none leaves us so shaking our heads as that of mindless, interchangeable automatons, marching lockstep to the commands of our rabbinic leadership. Because we view our friends...