Be Forewarned — Oversize Posting!
This is an unusual posting for this venue, no obvious relative of the short essays I post weekly. Clicking on “more” below will take you to a long article I worked on over the...
A.B. Yehoshua’s Lamentable Lament
It was both ironic and appropriate that The Guardian chose Tisha B’av to publish Israeli literary icon A B Yehoshua’s examination of corruption in the Jewish State. Yehoshua’s lament underscores not only the problems...
Lessons from the grave
Never have the boundaries between the private and public been so blurred. Agonizing deaths from cancer used to occur off-stage. No longer. In some cases, at least, that blurring of lines has been salutary....
Making Room for Hashem
Writing columns must be one of the easiest jobs in the world (though like most easy jobs it is not terribly remunerative). All one has to do is keep one’s ears open and, in...
Tangled Up In Jews
Anti-Israel diatribes spring from Iran’s leaders like fleas from a dog, but a recent Iranian Parliament statement stood apart, containing as it did a remarkable admission. The statement was in reaction to a comment...
Handmaiden of Spirituality
Nothing puts some scientists in a good mood like finding evidence that, at least to their minds, diminishes man’s unique qualities or standing in the universe. Discovering human-like tendencies in the great apes or...
What’s that for? Musar from a three-year-old
I am enjoying the privilege of holidaying with my family in the French Alps, so I am far from a minyan. While my children rarely see me davening, especially wearing tefillin, this morning my...
Judge-And-Jury Journalism
Like an amusement park barker inviting passers-by to step right up and throw balls at some unfortunate’s head sticking through a hole, The New York Times editorial page seems to have been calling on...
Israel’s greatest untapped source of brainpower
Education Minister Yuli Tamir became an unlikely haredi hero recently when she defended the Knesset vote to anchor in law funding of yeshivot ketanot (for young men aged 14 to 16) at 60 percent...