The idea that we have 20/20 hindsight is, in actuality, simply a myth. If hundreds of thousands had fled Europe, sacrificing their dedication to HaShem and His Torah, how do we know history would otherwise have stayed equal?
“Al ma avdah et ha’aretz – For what was the Land lost?” our Sages asked in the wake of the destruction of the Temple. To that question, Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch notes, the historians...
I thank my friend Rabbi Menken for a vivid demonstration of American democracy at its best. He took Natan Sharansky’s Town Square Test and emerged with his head still perched atop his shoulder blades....
How the city still sits solitary! Some two thousand years later, transformed into a bustling metropolis, the city and her people still sit and mourn alone. Many revile her today more intensely than the...
A piece I wrote in response to a a review of Marc Shapiro’s most recent book (and, to an extent, to the book itself) can be read here. And one about my personal reluctance...
Upon the signing of an Agreed Framework with North Korea in 1994, President Bill Clinton addressed the American people and assured them, “This is a good deal for the United States.” He explained that...
Every year, as we go through the Bein Ha-Metzarim, the period commencing with the Three Weeks and culminating with Tisha B’Av, I get very confused, and I think that many others do as well. One...
Last week, Rabbi Dr. David Berger published a bold and provocative critique about Open Orthodoxy. A brief attempted rebuttal of the article on the part of Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld seems to have gained little traction, and...
A piece I recently wrote about Minister Azoulay’s imprecise comments, and the larger issue of “religious pluralism” in Israel, is in Haaretz here .
by Moshe Hauer In 1812, as Napoleon and his Grand Arme̒e were approaching Russia, many Jewish leaders were eagerly anticipating their arrival, hoping that it would bring the liberty, equality and fraternity promised by...
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