Of Concerts and Bans
by Rabbi Dovid Landesman I write this piece with a sense of b’dchilu u’rchimu – let’s translate this as trepidation. When I was younger I was less hesitant about being a semi-m’gadef – ascribing...
Rabbi Feinstein Speaks
A recent attack on Israel’s Chief Rabbinate invoked the late and revered American Orthodox decisor of Jewish law, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein. The attacker was Professor Benjamin Ish-Shalom, the director of Israel’s Institute for Jewish...
R. Akiva Eiger, Mendelssohn, and the Shema
Other than history buffs, few people would associate R. Akiva Eiger (RAE) with Moses Mendelssohn. The former occupies a position of awe and reverence for those who have ever worked through the mind-boggling depth...
Invitation to Intermarriage
One can’t help but feel sad for Noah Feldman. In spite of his considerable professional accomplishments – a law professorship at Harvard, three books, a slew of well-received essays and a fellowship at the...
Feldman’s Folly (Part One)
If the Orthodox were going to leave him out, then Noah Feldman was going to out the Orthodox. He might just have done us a favor. His thesis was that there was nothing surprising...
Yeshivish Mainstreams!
The New Yorker, that venerable favorite of generations of East Coast literati, has apparently decided to weigh in on the recent Cross-Currents discussion regarding the use of proper and nuanced English. It may be...
Tisha B’Av, Intermarriage & Slippery Slopes
11 b Menahem-Av Formerly Orthodox Professor Noah Feldman, writing in the New York Times Magazine , “Orthodox Paradox,” July 22 two days before Tisha B’Av, complains that the Jewish Day School he attended (Maimonides...
Kibbutz Conversation
Tisha B’Av – which falls this year on July 24 – always brings back the personal memory of a conversation between two teen-aged cousins more than thirty years ago. It took place on the...
A Modestly Bold Proposal
I received the following letter from my friend Rabbi Dr Cardozo. The sentiments expressed therein will resonate with many. Some may cynically and perhaps correctly consider the notion a pipe dream. Yet it strikes...
Actions, Values, and Education
by Rabbi Doron Beckerman Much virtual ink has been spilled in recent months over the acts of vandalism, hooliganism, and general bad Middos of various sub-sectors of Charedi society. One of the themes which...