Oren Gets Ornery
It’s axiomatic that diplomats must be, well, diplomatic. That might explain why Michael Oren, a current member of the Knesset (Kulanu) but who served as ambassador of Israel to the United States from 2009...
Michael Oren’s New Book and the Mendacity of the Media
What, should Cross-Currents be the only one out there not to review Michael Oren’s new book before it even hits the stores? Especially after one of our readers, Stefanie Argamon, was nice enough to...
Thoughtless Jewish Jeers
I’m trying to understand the sort of mindlessness that expressed itself in the jeering of Treasury Secretary Jacob (“Jack”) Lew by some Jews at a recent gathering. The third Jerusalem Post Annual Conference which...
Agudath Israel Statement on Charleston Murders
June 17, 2015 STATEMENT FROM AGUDATH ISRAEL OF AMERICA ON THE MURDERS IN CHARLESTON The deaths of nine people at the hand of a gunman at Charleston’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church is not...
R Aharon Lichtenstein zt”l – The Last Word
We gave more space to the petirah and the life of Rav Lichtenstein than anyone else we’ve covered in Cross-Currents, chiefly because we reasoned that our readers knew less about him than they did...
Our Children are Children Too
A response in the New York Jewish Week to American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten, who wrote an earlier op-ed in that paper opposing NY Governor Andrew Cuomo’s plan to grant some relief...
There’s a Reason Hashem Invented Capitalism
The real haters won’t be satisfied until all the men close their gemaros. But for others – the majority of Israelis, I am led to believe – if families are self-sufficient and not on...
Ordination of Insubordination
“We’re going to blink and there’ll be 100 Orthodox women rabbis in America that have been given ordination”. –R. Adam Mintz, professor of Talmud, Yeshivat Maharat Within the week, three Orthodox-identified rabbinical ordination programs for...
Who’s In Charge?
Some of us can remember when taking a plane was a pleasant experience, even exhilarating. Those days, of course, are long gone. It used to be – if “good old days” syndrome hasn’t played...
Appraising Children
The teaser headline on a Business Insider article — “The ultimate status symbol for millionaire moms on New York’s Upper East Side is not what you’d expect” — is explained by the piece in...