Tortured women in the Bible, tortured readings of the Bible text, my my. I was asked a question about Hagar a few weeks ago, and since Hagar is first mentioned in this week’s parsha...

(In line with the suggestion made by one of its readers, I am posting the following from the RJJ Newsletter just out. ) There is at long last heightened awareness of the tuition crises...

The first thing that struck me on my first visit to the new exhibition hall at Yad Vashem, Israel’s major Holocaust museum, was the group of older people in front of me entering the...

Rabbi Moshe Matz sent the following letter: Dear Friends, This year we saw powerful storms that wrought havoc across the country. Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast and then Hurricane Rita followed, once again...

Rabbi Aharon Kotler once told his friend Rabbi Yaakov Yitzchak Ruderman, Rosh Yeshiva of Ner Israel Rabbinical College, “I only envy you one thing: Rabbi Neuberger.” Reb Aharon was referring to Rabbi Naftoli Neuberger,...

Harry Miers?! Relax, I’ll explain myself in due course. But first, Yaakov Menken is right on the mark — David Forman isn’t just another garden-variety Reform clergyperson. He is a former director of the...

The Great Lulav Scare of 5766 has passed. In the end, it appears that there were more or less lulavim for everyone. On Erev Succos, lulavim were in plentiful supply in Flatbush, and at...

Several weeks ago, Rabbi Feldman wrote concerning a flyer published by a Jerusalem shopping mall. The flyer contained an article about the then-upcoming fast of Yom Kippur, and provided several tips in order to...

Two completely unrelated items – one serious, one humorous – about people getting their facts wrong. For quite a while, the key narrative in the parsha (Torah reading) we just finished has been the...

Jack Wertheimer has issued another one of his periodic jeremiads on the state of mainstream American Jewry in the October Commentary (“Jews and the Jewish Birthrate). In recent years, Wertheimer has emerged as one...