Bias Vs. Backbone
A sports team owner’s base racism was all the talk of the world town last week. But a more subtle – and thus more dangerous – prejudice has been on public display, too, of...
Category: Politics
Outmaneuvered by Dossim
There’s an organization called “Dossim” in Israel that has been working to counter the anti-charedi bias of Israel’s secular media for over a year. It is how I first met Tzippy Yarom, who did...
What Do They Really Think About Us?
There are few more ungainly or unattractive positions than that of someone patting his own back. Nevertheless, I feel compelled to offer a call-out to HaMercaz L’Mechkar V’Tikshoret Yehudit (The Center for Jewish Research...
Social Injustice
The following essay currently appears on the New York Jewish Week website.. (My regular weekly essays appear in the Wednesday edition of Hamodia.) It was Albert Camus’ insight that bad things often result from...
A Letter to a Troubled Charedi Father
I received an email from a Charedi man with two sons in learning (one in Lakewood), who is very troubled by the current rejection of the draft. It is obvious that he does not...
An Atzeres Tefillah
It is with good reason that the huge gathering in response to the Shaked Committee Report was styled as an atzeres tefillah (a prayer gathering), and not as a protest. Even in moments of...
A Response to Rabbi Slifkin
Last week, I penned an article articulating why there was a gathering in Manhattan of 50,000 Torah observant Jews who do not wish to see Yeshiva students forcibly drafted into the army. The gathering...
Torah Study and the IDF – A Halachic Overview
Many people, from outside and even from inside the Chareidi community, have questioned the Torah sources regarding Bnei Torah continuing to study rather than serving in the army. There is no question, of course,...
The Devil’s In The Daydreams
One would be forgiven, especially were one an optimist, for imagining that recent reports of the government of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s donation of $400,000 to a Teheran Jewish hospital might signal something positive...
Obama and the (Orthodox) Jews
(The article below appeared earlier this month in Haaretz. I share it here with that paper’s permission.) The gabbai at the shul I usually attend on Shabbos is something of a comedian. When I...
Recent Comments