They Will Come for You, Too
For all the protests to the contrary, recent news articles (and comments right here on Cross-Currents) have demonstrated why Agudath Israel felt the need to warn against confusing the behavior of isolated thugs with...
Welcoming The Charedi Spring
The Charedi Spring may have finally arrived. Eight year old Naama Margolese may do for Israel what a Tunisian street vendor did for the Arab world. The wave of revulsion for the behavior of...
A Much Needed Response
I have been too busy to post as often as I wanted, and yet wanted to say something, anything, about the fool who said his “rabbis” told him it was ok to spit at...
Isms of a Modern Age
I was honestly humbled by the participation of the speakers who preceded me at the Sunday morning session of Agudath Israel of America’s most recent national convention. They were: the venerable Malcolm Hoenlein (whose...
First, Let’s Calm Down
To judge from the media, both Israeli and international, the status of women in Israel is under an assault of crisis proportions. No less a figure than U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton has...
Relief For Insomnia
As my kids were growing up, they would often drift out of the beds they had been consigned to, claiming inability to fall asleep. I was often able to suggest a cure, other than...
What Kim Jong Il Missed
by staying north of the 38th Parallel Kudos to the Ponovezh hanhalah for apparently understanding the implications of this exposure, and giving the camera crew not only access to what they wanted, but even...
Questions Aren’t Fatal
When, as a teenager, I first read about the Code of Hammurabi, the ancient set of social laws dating from the time of our forefather Avraham, I was greatly troubled. Elements of the code,...
Who is Undermining Israeli Democracy?
In order to fully appreciate the absurdity of Court President Dorit Beinisch’s charge that even the most minimal proposed changes in Israel’s method of judicial selection represent an attempt to undermine “the democracy upon...
A Grand Theory of Halachic Everything
If you are an intellectual creativity junkie, you will get your fill with this article by Dr. Moshe Koppel of Bar-Ilan. I found it breathtaking in its sweep and its utility. I will be...