Optics and Essence
While Democrats and Republicans were trading verbal punches – and misinformation – about immigrant children last week, an adult immigrant riveted the attention of a crowd, and then the world, as he saved a...
Cross-Currents Blog
The Israeli Rabbinate’s New Standards
An article I wrote for Haaretz about Israel’s official rabbinate “blacklisting” some American rabbis, disallowing their vouching for people’s Jewish credentials can be read here. Even if you’re not a Haaretz subscriber or registrant, if...
Increasing Disdain for Religious Americans
A piece I wrote for Forward at its request about the Supreme Court Masterpiece Cakeshop decision can be read here.
Why the Supreme Court’s Masterpiece Cakeshop Opinion Looks Tasty but Is Only Half-Baked
The Torah community has much reason to take comfort in Monday’s decision by the United States Supreme Court in Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. If the bakery had lost, such a...
Human Uniqueness
In the course of a public roundtable discussion about immigration and crime, a few days before Shavuos, President Trump made a comment that provoked some outrage. “You wouldn’t believe how bad these people are,”...
The never-ending saga of unrecognized American conversions
There now seems to have arisen the latest recurring chapter in the never-ending saga of situations where radical-left rabbis in America expect and demand that the Israeli Chief Rabbinate recognize them and their “conversions”...
Moving Commentary 8: Love Up Close and From a Distance
R. Yehuda HaLevi wrote about journeys on which his heart took him – back to the splendor of Israel before the Destruction. כל תענוגים בבא בסרך / All the delights of the world found...
Gentlemen, Sling Your Mud!
Winston Churchill famously cited the sentiment that “democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” Indeed, while majority rule might in...
Dismantling the Palestinian Lie
In a recent, now infamous, speech PA President Mahmoud Abbas turned his attention to history’s favorite target: the Jews. This is no surprise, as the very name “Palestine” has always served to dissociate the Jews from their homeland.
Is Rabbi Riskin Ordaining Female Rabbis?
(This article originally appeared in the Jewish Press.) Last Wednesday, May 16, Rabbi Shlomo Riskin conferred the titles of “Morot Hora’ah U’Manhigot Ruchaniyot” – “Halachic Authorities and Spiritual Leaders” – upon three women, who...
