Stupid, Yes, But is it Anti-Semitic? Part 1
The most frightening thing about The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy is how bad, shockingly bad, it is. That two professors at two of the world’s leading universities could have produced a book...
It’s Not What the Neighbours Say
“The plural of anecdotes is not data” goes an old saying. Yet when one attempts to examine a wide variety of social phenomenon in the Israel Torah community, hard data is hard to come...
An Appeal To Those Leaving Kollel
Aha! Now that I’ve got your attention, I can tell the truth: this post is about the closing of the New York Kollel, an adult education program housed in and partially supported by Reform’s...
An Anguished Question
Israeli media are reporting that there was another incident of violence against a woman for refusing to move to the back of the bus. I have no way of knowing whether the story is...
Yom Kippur Heroes
This past Yom Kippur Israeli security forces averted a major disaster when they uncovered a fully prepared explosive belt in the heart of Tel Aviv at the last moment. The drama worthy of a...
Much Ado About Shmittah
Those “Ultra-Orthodox” in Israel are at it again, inventing new stringencies, coercing other Jews, trying to make a dishonest buck and generally making life unlivable for everybody else. At least that is what seems...
Arafat’s Posthumous Victory
Something about the scene struck me as completely incongruous. The members of the second Am Echad delegation – a group of concerned American Jews representing a wide spectrum of American Orthodoxy – were gathered...
What the snake knew
The woman said to the Serpent, . . . “Of the fruit of the tree which is in the center of the garden, G-d has said: ‘You shall neither eat of it nor touch...
A visit to Sochaczew
Last week, I fulfilled a long-held desire – to visit the ruins of the Jewish cemetery in Sochaczew, a town some 40 miles west of Warsaw. With a Jewish population of over 3000 prior...
Ann Coulter and the Jewish Problem
Those not hiding in a cave or immersed entirely in Torah study for the past two days — and in either case, why would you then be reading Cross-Currents? — are undoubtedly aware that...