Do We All Believe in the Same G-d? Do Muslims?
Back in the old days, America’s religious checkerboard came in only two colors – Jewish and Christian. This was never true, of course, but we liked to think it was. The perception left room...
Category: Religion
Hypocrisy, Thy Name is Meretz
Another gem from Jameel: The winter session of the Knesset is now in session. MK Chaim Oron (Meretz) ascended the podium of Israel’s parliament and proposed a new law: Any person who attempts to...
Not Always Divine
The horrific murder of five Amish schoolgirls and the response to those murders by the Amish community has attracted extensive news coverage and inspired much meaningful commentary. Perhaps the most thought provoking interchange centered...
An Unworldly Stillness
We each have our own memory highlights of the recently concluded Days of Awe: the Shofar of Rosh Hashana; the magnificent symphony of that day’s Musaf Amida; penetrating prayers like “Who shall live and...
Was Ezra haredi?
Was Biblical Ezra the Scribe ultra-Orthodox? What lies behind this seemingly silly question is a set of serious questions: When did Torah-observant Jewry divide into Orthodox, modern Orthodox, ultra-Orthodox, etc.? Were Moshe Rabbenu, Ezra...
A Jewish Answer to Neturei Karta
This answer was just posted to JewishAnswers yesterday. I don’t know who wrote it, but it could have been most anyone in the JewishAnswers group. I would be interested to know what you think...
Rabbis with Answers
The JTA ran an article recently about the development of new web sites to answer questions from Jews around the world. Our own JewishAnswers.org features prominently, of course, though the article missed what I...
Talking nonsense about religion
Ever notice how many ridiculous assertions, many of them touching on matters of religion, are printed in serious journals weekly? Last week’s non sequitur prize goes to Jerusalem Report‘s cover story on sexual harassment...
For them, Yom Kippur was easy as pie
Erev Yom Hakippurim, 5767. My Netanya neighbor Livia Bitton Jackson wrote in her Holocaust memoirs, I Have Lived a Thousand Years and Elli: Coming of Age in the Holocaust that she forced herself and...
An Interesting Postscript
A second follow-up to Rabbi Adlerstein’s non-response to the “Monsey chicken story:” In the comments thread, I wrote that there is a butcher here in Baltimore who carries no hechsher (Kosher certification). I also...
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