AGT or YGK?
Virtually the entire Jewish community was united last week in its concern for Eyal, Naftoli and Gilad. It took a kippah-wearing twelve year-old shocking the judges on America’s Got Talent to give us back...
The World Comes Looking for President Obama
Were he capable of admitting, much less learning from, past mistakes, President Obama might now be contemplating the limits of “Don’t do anything stupid” – i.e., avoid all foreign interventions – as a sufficient...
From The Mouths of Secularists
“…To this very day, if you ask for my religion, I say ‘Orthodox Hebrew’ – in the sense that the church [sic] I’m not attending is that one. If I were to go to...
Defining Deviancy Down
With Dad’s advice and encouragement, and young man introduced himself as a stand-up comic — and then proceeded to deliver a series of truly filthy jokes… while wearing a kipah. How should we respond to this?
Marriage: Not to be Taken for Granted
Rachel Ginsberg’s feature “Frayed Beyond Repair” in last week’s Mishpacha about the rise of middle-age divorce among couples married two decades or more — many of whom appeared to have had perfectly stable, functional...
Tikvah: The Distaff Side
In a manner reminiscent of the way a woman takes over all the space in the closet once a guy gets married, the women have taken over the TikvahYeshiva website. Which is a good...
What a Jewish Mother Whose Son Is Held Captive Thinks About
One excerpt from a letter to rabbis of the RCA from Mrs. Rachelli Sprecher Frankel, mother of Israeli hostage Naftali Frankel: We trust the Rabbis will talk about Eyal, Gil-ad & Naftali in their...
A Beautiful Response To Some Odious Suggestions
In the pain we all share in the uncertainty over the Shvuyei Tzion, some have been moved to publish suggestions that are silly, obnoxious, and reprehensible. Unless, of course, they were made by genuine...
How Prayer Can #BringBackOurBoys
Two recent articles have sought to demean the concept of tefilla at times of crisis like the present one. A response to the critics that I wrote for the Forward can be read here.
A Prediction Fulfilled — Sadly
Exactly one year ago, in a piece entitled “Yair Lapid Sets Back the Clock,” I predicted that Yair Lapid and his Yesh Atid party would reverse a decade-long trend toward greater chareidi integration in...