Sefer Torah Abuse
We rend our garments if a sefer Torah is, chalilah, desecrated. If one should fall to the ground, it is customary for those present to undertake to fast that day. I don’t know what...
Category: News
Ebola and Metzitza Bipeh
Part of a message from the Medical Society of the State of New York to local physicians reads as follows: “Strategies to limit the potential for [Ebola] transmission… should be based on the best...
Moral Climate Change
My pre-Sukkos column about the furious, quasi-religious zeal of some environmental alarmists apparently generated some… well, furious, quasi-religious zeal. In an editorial, the New Jersey Jewish Standard’s managing editor mocked my contention that the...
“Personal Torah”
A recent announcement by a respected Conservative rabbi has been trumpeted widely as evidence of his heroism. My take is somewhat different, and was published, to the periodical’s credit, by the Forward. You can...
Misplaced Zeal
The powerful swell of voices on Broadway, thirteen stories below Agudath Israel’s offices, did more than disturb my concentration. A thousand people were blocking traffic and loudly chanting in unison, the roar less redolent...
Malignancies
There’s nothing remotely funny, of course, about rabid Islamists beheading innocent Westerners they have kidnapped (or their fellow Muslims, for that matter). Yet, there is something bizarrely droll about the characterization of such slaughter,...
Immoral “Morality”
In a good illustration of just how thick people who are intellectually gifted can be, the well-known biologist and militant atheist Richard Dawkins recently offered his opinion that Down syndrome children would best be...
Kidneys, Cash and Caring
Over recent years, “Israelis have played a disproportionate role” in organ trafficking, The New York Times reported recently in a lengthy front-page story. Some Israeli entrepreneurs “have pocketed enormous sums for arranging overseas transplants...
The End is Near
The recent upsurge in anti-Semitism across Western Europe and around the globe, complete with swastikas and “Death to the Jews” chants, is depressing and alarming. It should also, however, be inspiring. For, once again,...
Enemies, Real and Imagined
1) Hamas is evil. 2) Israel has a responsibility to protect its citizens. 3) Anti-Israel sentiment is usually simple Jew-hatred in (not very good) disguise. 4) The United States needs to be fully supportive...
Recent Comments