Crime and Capital Punishment
So accustomed are we to incarceration as punishment that it’s easy to forget that punitive confinement is entirely absent from the Jewish mesorah. To be sure, the Torah allows for – and even describes...
Category: Judaism
Why Orthodoxy needs both — OU congregations and Young Israel shuls
Having been a rabbi at shuls with non-observant Presidents, I know first-hand the night-and-day difference behind the scenes when the Shul President is Torah-observant.
What the Pew Report Got Wrong
An opinion piece I wrote for JTA about a recent Pew report on religious restrictions in countries around the globe, and which had criticism of Israel, can be read here.
Federation Blues
When a media offering chooses to not identify a quoted speaker, it loses a bit of credibility. But the words attributed to several unnamed Jewish federation leaders in a recent report in the Israeli...
Why AOC’s Comments Crossed the Border
Every politician knows you can’t needlessly offend ethnic and other constituencies. The idea that you can make a career out of bigotry towards a particular minority is a notion America was supposed to have discarded 50 years ago.
Mountains to Climb
Ever find yourself in a long “10 items or less” supermarket line waiting for the cashier to check the price of kumquats for the lady who apparently considers all her fruits and vegetables to...
The Equality Act: A Direct Assault on Jewish Values
At its root, the Equality Act declares the Torah to be a bigoted document, and all those who follow its guidance to be bigots as a result. This is true because the Torah says that man and woman are different, that marriage is between man and woman, and that certain relationships are pure while others prohibited.
A Midrash Comes Alive
At one point in an address to the United Nations Security Council earlier this month, Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the U.N., reached for a yarmulke, placed it on his head and read from...
In Judaism, Abortion Is Not A Right
An article of mine on the disconnect between contemporary society’s understanding of abortion and that of Judaism was published by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and can be read here
Hideous Headline
On the first day of Pesach, Michigan Representative Rashida Tlaib offered the “Jewish sisters and brothers” among her constituents Passover greetings, accompanied by a graphic that included two fluffy loaves of bread.
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