Chalk one up for Olmert
To judge from opinion polls, most Israelis would be hard-pressed to name one action of the Olmert government that they support. Well, I can: the appointment of Professor Daniel Friedmann as Justice Minister. The...
Category: Judaism
Fraying Bonds
by Rabbi Elchonon Oberstien Haaretz, the newspaper of Israel’s Ashkenazi elite, is worried about the future of Kibbutz Mizra. What is so special about Mizra? Kibbutz Mizra’s meat processing plant is famous for its...
The Protest That Fizzled
What if the Palestinian lobby threw a party, and no one came? They did, and that’s pretty much what happened. The fortieth anniversary of the Six-Day War was supposed to be marked last weekend...
Dear Graduates
[I was recently privileged to address the commencement ceremony of Bais Yaakov of Baltimore, an Orthodox girls school founded in 1942. Below is an edited version of my remarks to the more than 100...
Twice Duped
Note: This post contains what some may regard as more than their minimum daily requirement of sarcasm. Personally, I regard this as healthy facetiousness towards deserving recipients. But if you are facetiousness-sensitive (or have...
Torah Extremism and its Opposite
Barry Goldwater, famously declared in his acceptance speech at the 1964 Republican convention, “. . . [E]xtremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! . . . [M]oderation in hte pursuit of justice...
Negating the Past; Dishonoring the Present
In general, I prefer not to write pieces in the form “see the difference between my son and the son of my father-in-law.” For one thing, what is sometimes known as Orthodox triumphalism seldom...
Remembering May 1967
Only once during my childhood did a television ever violate the sanctum of our family dining room. For the two weeks leading up to the Six Day War, a small TV stood on the...
The Silver Lining of the Boycott Cloud
There are several, actually. The proposed British boycott of Israeli academicians has backfired to the point that even the Palestinians were taken by surprise. The aftermath has been a PR bonanza for Israel, with...
American Idols
I already have a title: “Ferry Tales.” Now all I need is the time to write the book in my head about the interesting things I’ve witnessed over the years on my daily commute...
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