Conservative Jews Deserve More than PR
All agree that the Conservative Jewish movement is in rapid decline. But by hiring a PR agency, the United Synagogue is going in the wrong direction — surveys and branding will not fix the fundamental problem.
Bernie’s Kibbutz and Mine
The disclosure of which kibbutz Senator Bernie Sanders spent time at in1963 was red meat for the voracious purveyors of what, regrettably, passes for political commentary these days. Mr. Sanders – now the first...
Weekly Digest – News and Essays In and Out of Orthodoxy – Week of Parshas Tetzaveh 5776
THE LEGACY OF RAV BELSKY, ZT’L Obergefell and the Jewish Community – Fantastic essay by Rabbi Pruzansky American Orthodox Jews will miss Scalia, their great defender The Passing of Justice Scalia . . ....
The Agudah and YU: the Quiet Revolution and the New World Order
Call it a truce or call what it what you will, but the two movements seem somehow closer today than the way things appeared a generation ago. What, indeed, has happened here? What hath God wrought?
The American Jewish Buffet
“Secular Orthodox.” That’s how Avinoam Bar-Yosef, president of the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute, recently characterized many Israelis. What he meant was that, while an Israeli may not be observant of halachah, or even...
Rabbi Gordimer and his Critics
I rise on a question of personal privilege on behalf of an esteemed colleague. An open debate of ideas is appropriate (as we have said all along), but unfounded mischaracterization of a writer’s motivations and dialogue with others is quite out of line.
A Monument to Discord
The new Israeli agreement to create an “egalitarian” section at the Western Wall promises not merely a fissure, but fragmentation. It has already exposed the fault line of disagreement between the Reform movement and the Reform-funded Women of the Wall.
The First Klal Perspectives Shabbaton
It was only a few years ago that a few guys tired of listening to each other kvetch, and put together a very modest action plan. The first step was a secret conclave of...
How to Disagree – My Exchange with Dr. Marc Shapiro
Yesterday was tense. It was uncomfortable. It was a day of squeezing in a lengthy reply to Dr. Marc Shapiro’s post about some of my writings, between loads of regular work and with almost no...
Weekly Digest – News and Essays In and Out of Orthodoxy – Week of Parshas Terumah 5776
Rabbi Genack’s Hesped for Rabbi Belsky Rav Yisroel Belsky Zt”l A thought about Rav Belsky Zt’L – by Mordechai Dornbush Orthodox Jewish trader, immigrant Harvard grad, killed by Manhattan crane collapse Obergefell and the...