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A new “blockbuster” survey has been published online to offer insights into why some people “leave” Orthodox practice and go OTD (“Off the Derekh”). This most recent entry in Jewish demography is based on...

Despite the great efforts of great rabbinical leaders and explicators of Jewish thought and belief, every generation has seen Orthodoxy lose the fealty of numbers of young people during their lives, meaningful demographic losses....

There is a “pink elephant” in the room as Orthodoxy discusses authentic Torah values in an environment rife with secular stirring. It is a fear that may hinder some without their even realizing they...

By Avrohom Gordimer Last week, Cross-Currents featured an essay by guest contributor Rav Dov Fischer about the recent Morethodoxy articles which called for deletion of the morning berachah “She-lo asani ishah”. Morethodoxy has continued...

In more than 2,000 years of published halakhic analysis, it is not surprising that our greatest Poskim imbued with the deepest access to the Torah’s loftiest meanings have published deep thoughts and rulings that...

by Rabbi Dov Fischer Recently, Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky, one of six national officers of the International Rabbinic Fellowship (IRF) and rabbi of a West Coast Orthodox Union congregation, published a deeply disturbing internet article...

by Dov Fischer Jewish population statistics fascinate me. As with other kinds of surveys, they tell some truths, misrepresent others. As Mr. Merlis, my yeshiva high school social studies teacher, used to say: “Figures...

By Dov Fischer I live in Irvine and have been a congregational rabbi and community activist here for more than five years. Because I grew up on the East Coast, have traveled all across...

by Dov Fischer Twenty years ago, a friend arranged for me to have lunch with a prominent Jewish name-partner at a major Los Angeles law firm. My friend explained to me that the partner...