Conversion Confuddlement
From the Urban Dictionary: “Being confuddled is when your confused about being confused but u dont know wot your confused about so your completly confuddled.” One of the more frequent complaints about Cross-Currents, at...
A Response to My Critics
My post on Noah Feldman’s recent essay in the New York Times provoked an unusually large number of responses — most critical of my post and many unflattering on a personal level. I was...
The Elephant and the Non-Jewish Problem – Part I
A well-worn anecdote has it that a teacher assigned the writing of an essay with the requirement that it relate to elephants in some way. Looking through the submitted papers, the teacher came upon...
The NBA and the Elul Wager
Justice came quickly for NBA veteran referee Tim Donaghy, who pled guilty recently to betting on games at which he officiated and sharing his predictions on the point spread with professional gamblers. Donaghy, who...
Correction Regarding Mendelssohn’s Biur
Rabbi Moshe Kolodny, Archivist for Agudath Israel, alerted me to a dumb error in my piece on Mendelssohn’s Biur. I expressed surprise that R. Akiva Eiger, while voicing other objections to the Biur’s rendition...
Ready for Martyrdom
Today’s Jewish World Review carries an article about Saraa Barhoum, “the young star of Hamas television’s best-known children’s show.” The show is “best known for bringing the world a militant Mickey Mouse look-alike and...
Avarice or Cowardice or ???
The Forward recently reported on another in a series of what it calls “cushy confabs” that bring together the really important Jews to deliberate and pontificate (although the pontiff himself was not invited —...
Lost in Space
Like most religions, Scientism has its articles of faith. Science, the study of nature, has a premise — the scientific method — but no required beliefs about the unseen. Scientism, by contrast — the...
Oy Vey! They Became Religious!
By Rabbi Dovid Eliezrie The women was crying. Her daughter became a Baalas Teshuva some years ago, and lives in Bnai Brak. The daughter has done everything possible to inhibit the parents from having...
Hashovas Aveidah – Dovid Yisroel HaKohen Botnick
UPDATE: The owner has been located and the item(s) returned. If anyone knows this person, please leave a comment (it won’t be published) or email. He left something in Baltimore. The spelling above is...