Dear Mr. Rahimi
Item: Iran’s vice president, Mohammad-Reza Rahimi, took the occasion of an International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking conference in Tehran to tell the assembled that the Talmud and “Zionists” dedicated to it...
Israel Foolishly Offends the Left
There is no joy in Berkeley. Mighty Israel has struck out! As if Israel were not already in enough trouble with leftists, she had to really get under their skin. Leftists in Israel teach...
Entering The Three Weeks
Groundless hatred cost us the beis ha-mikdosh, and cast us into a galus we have still not extricated ourselves from. This short YouTube, part of a film competition in Israel, might help get some...
A New, Ugly Wrinkle in the Tuition Crisis
There is a new kind of captive in the making, but do not expect to see any pidyon shvuyim effort on his or her behalf. This new prisoner is a sad by-product of the...
A Fish Story for The Fourth
The other night I noticed something strange about one of the two “oscars” (Astronotus ocellatus) in my aquarium. I bought the fish years ago and it has grown from less than an inch in...
Israel and Jewish Identity
Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetsky once said at convention of Agudath Israel that but for the birth of the state of Israel most non-religious Jews would have fallen into such despair after the Holocaust that their...
The Meaning of the Wisconsin Recall Election
The most surprising aspect of the current presidential race – to me at least — is not that Mitt Romney appears to be clawing his way into contention, after an extremely divisive Republican season,...
Nachal Charedi – Reality Check
by Akiva Paths In the past I wrote about my Air Force Daughter. Since that time she has now been joined by Infantry Son. Being ultra-orthodox, charedi if you will, we were not willing...
The Failure of Chareidi Advocacy
Given the irrational nature of much of the hatred directed at the chareidi community, it would be tempting to say that we bear no part of the responsibility for the state of frayed relations...
Advice for the Plesner Committee: Minimize Confrontation
I do not offer the following thoughts to the members of the Plesner Committee in order to convince them of the wisdom of the current draft deferment for full-time yeshiva students. Life is short,...