Seeing Privilege As A Pain
Sometimes a first-person account is just so sad you could cry. And when the writer seems oblivious to the sadness, well, then it’s sadder still. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency recently offered a piece written...
My Chanukah Shiur
An entire hour of machshavah, delivered on the first day of Chanukah at the Yachad Kolel, without having to endure a single original thought of mine. That’s because it is entirely a collection of...
The Pope’s Paper: It Ain’t Your Grandmother’s Catholicism
Many Jews are so scarred (rightfully so!) by stories of horrors perpetrated upon us in the name of Christianity, that those stories become a defining part of their reality. Christian hatred of Jews is...
In Those Days, In This Time
The following essay was written for Haaretz and appeared on its website recently under a different title. I share it here with that paper’s permission. There’s a striking irony in the fact that Chanukah...
The Rabbi has no Robes
Earlier this year, I wrote about how easy it now is to become a Reform or Conservative Rabbi, with the advent of $8000 online ordination. An enterprising woman from Detroit has managed to take...
Rabbi Yosef Grunblatt, z”l
I was saddened to learn of the petirah of one of the giants of the American shul rabbinate, Rav Yosef Grunblatt, z”l. Surely much will be written about him by those who knew him...
Adina Bar Shalom and the Poverty Video
Given her decades-long reputation for bold innovation without looking over her shoulder for approval, I expected her to be tall, large and speak with a commanding voice. I was completely unprepared for what Rabbanit...
Seeding the Right Cloud
Following the time-honored if somewhat irritating tradition of speechmakers who begin by announcing that they are departing from the scheduled topic, I informed those present that instead of focusing on the media’s coverage of...
A Sidebar on Limmud
Knowing too many of the main players in the UK Limmud controversy (and being particularly close with Rabbis Rosenblum and Cardoza) I am going to sit this one out. I agreed with arguments in...
Federated Blindness
So the Jewish Federations of North America, the massive collected financial might of America’s leading Jewish donors, has left Jerusalem. Their General Assembly only meets in Jerusalem once every five years, so this was...