Merits, Not Munitions
The reporter’s question: “Should the chareidim serve in [Israel’s] military, or at least serve in some other capacity such as recognized public service commensurate with military service?” The query was posed to me in...
Category: News
Of Labels and Fables
In European Union countries, the words “Product of the West Bank (Israeli settlement)” will now replace “Product of Israel” on labels of foodstuffs, cosmetics and other consumer goods produced by Jewish-owned enterprises in Yehudah...
Denominational Déjà Vu
In 2001, I predicted that the Conservative movement would soon enough “halachically” approve what halacha forbids in no uncertain terms. [It did so 5 years later.] I perceive precisely the same Conservative approach to halacha in what bills itself today as “Open Orthodoxy.”
Rav Aharon Feldman on Open Orthodoxy
The positions Open Orthodox leaders have espoused put them unmistakably beyond the pale of Torah Judaism, no different than the Reform or Conservative movements. Open Orthodoxy is leading the Jewish people away from the Torah.
CER: Open Orthodox Rabbis are Not Rabbis
The Conference of European Rabbis states that Open Orthodoxy is responsible for “deviations from our religious foundations,” and that its graduates are not recognized as rabbis in any Torah-observant community in Europe.
Misguided Mounters
“As if the situation here was not sensitive enough,” groused an incredulous MK Yoel Hasson (Hamachaneh HaTzioni). He was referring to Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely’s comment that her “dream is to see...
The Symptoms are Not the Problem
The statement regarding Open Orthodoxy by the Council of Torah Sages of Agudath Israel is not about women rabbis, politics, or excluding Jews from the Jewish community. It is about integral components of traditional Jewish belief, and truth in advertising.
Buried Treasure in Tokyo
At a news conference last week, Satoshi Omura, a Japanese researcher and one of three scientists who had just won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, made a comment that was not only...
Where “Objective” is Defective
I’m not among those who grow apoplectic at the New York Times’ reportage from Israel. There are, to be sure, occasions when, in misguided attempts to achieve what passes these days for “evenhandedness,” the...
Opinions Gone Wild
I’m greatly pained by much of the reaction in the Orthodox community to what has come to be called the Iran Deal. To be sure, there are elements of the agreement that are less...
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