Shooting Ourselves in the Foot — Again
With Meah Shearim resembling a war zone last week, and the top headline in every newspaper blaring, “Chareidim . . .,” I felt the need for a voice of sanity. I found him in...
Do You Know Where Your Boychik Is?
After every demonstration that turns violent in Jerusalem, there are inevitably a spate of frantic calls from American parents whose sons have been arrested at the demonstrations, sometimes after having been beaten badly by...
A haredi consensus?
The lead paragraph of a front-page story in Monday’s Jerusalem Post describes “the entire haredi public as having formed “a united front . . . to support the Jerusalem mother who allegedly starved her...
How To Promote Baseless Hatred
Destroying another’s property – or communal property or, for that matter, one’s own property – is also forbidden by the Torah. No exceptions have ever been made in halachic codes for instances where a government policy or action is not to one’s liking.
Oy Lanu Mei-Elbonah Shel Torah – Two Proposals
מה נאמר ומה נצטדק R. Chaim Volozhin writes that by right, we ought not daven for ourselves, but for צערה דשכינה, the pain of the Shechinah, as it were. Chazal pointedly describe the Shechinah...
The Last Taboo: Intermarried Rabbis
“In the Mix” is the name of a monthly column by Julie Wiener, carried by the NY Jewish Week. Ms. Wiener describes herself as “married to a lapsed Catholic — one who has encouraged...
The Rod to Greatness
By Doron Beckerman The tongue of the wise will approve of good sense, and the mouth of imbeciles will cause folly to flow. (Mishlei 15:2) When I’m not writing pieces for Cross-Currents, I’m involved...
Holocaust Denials
The “Endlösung” – the “Final Solution” – was for “der Judenfrage” – “the Jewish Question.” There was no “Romani Question” or “Homosexual Question.”
Baruch Hashem, Nothing Has Changed
by Dovid Landesman Reportedly, when the Munkatcher Rebbe, the Minchas Elazar zt”l, returned to Hungary after visiting with the Alfandri in Yerushalayim, his chassidim asked him: “Rebbe, is there anything new in Eretz Yisrael?”...
Artificial Halacha: Two More Flavors
[Warning to readers. If you believe that you have no valid reason to read details about approaches to halacha best described as kefirah, please go no further. This piece is not for you, and...