The Right to Disrupt Your Prayers
Nofrat Frenkel made the news two weeks ago — by getting herself arrested. In violation of an Israeli court order, she took out a Torah scroll in the area of the Western Wall consecrated...
Category: Religion
The Roars of Crowds
I’ve never experienced a pogrom or been pursued by an angry mob, thank G-d. And yet my genes seem to hold some residue – bequeathed in some Lamarckian way by less fortunate forebears –...
Who Is A Briton?
How the Court squares itsjudgment of Jewish law as racially discriminatory with the fact that the very same law grants full Jewish status to anyone who accepts Jewish observance and undergoes conversion – regardless of color, national origin or ethnicity – is not known.
The Atheists’ Unintended Gift
Most people, even those who readily profess belief in G-d if asked, don’t often dwell on that belief’s implications. It sits in their heads, a checked-off box filed away for posterity.
Trouble on J Street
The discussion which led to this post began, of all places, on Twitter. Shai Gluskin, a Reconstructionist Rabbi whom I’d met on a train four years ago, was monitoring the J-Street Conference this week,...
The Daily Jews
there is still a mass of Jews who daily and diligently heed the Talmud’s admonition to act in a way that “causes the name of G-d to be loved because of you[r actions]” (Yoma 86a)
EEOC vs. Belmont Abbey, Continued
I am honored that Professor David Neipert, one of the faculty members who initiated the EEOC complaint against Belmont Abbey College, saw fit to respond to my earlier article on this topic (as it...
The People Problem
The life work of Norman Borlaug, who died shortly before Rosh Hashana at the age of 95, should give deep pause to those who see humans as a threat to the planet. Those, that...
Thirteen Times Two Equals One
Oddly, a Hebrew phrase familiar to the Jewishly-educated is routinely used to refer to two entirely different and seemingly unrelated things. The phrase is “Yud Gimmel Middot” – literally, “13 Measures” – and one...
Shortchanging Our Children
Elul is a month devoted to deepening our connection to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Ultimately, that process must take place on the individual level. But, as the Baal Shem Tov and Rabbi Yisrael Salanter each...
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