Kosher Gym
The Washington Post has an article on Jerusalem’s “Kosher Gym,” which has separate hours for men and women and doesn’t have “MTV-tuned televisions and piped-in hip-hop.” The Post doesn’t get everything right, of course....
Women Against Capitalism
The case against the Egged Bus Company’s “Mehadrin Lines” is moving forward and in the news. I think it deserves its own comment thread, independent of the plagiarism complaints against one of the parties....
Amen to Ahavat Yisrael
In a Jerusalem Post opinion piece, Dr. Jonathan Schorsch calls me a “clever fellow” whose “handwringing” over the hatred I’ve encountered aimed at Orthodox Jews is “somewhat posed, if not disingenuous.” Dr. Schorsch can...
Who’s (Not) a Heretic?
Like many others, I grew up with the understanding that there really weren’t any bona fide apikorsim (heretics) any longer. “Do you know how much a person has to know before he can be...
‘Yom Kippur’s the obstacle’ – a look into the future
Item: ‘Government panel to alter conversion policy’ (Jerusalem Post, March 5); Item: ‘Since intermarriage is inevitable, humanist liberals say that conversions are unnecessary’ (Haaretz, March 28); ‘New calls for reform of rabbinic conversion courts’...
In the presence of the Shechinah
A few weeks before Pesach, I tagged along with my wife for an extended weekend at Moshav Hispin under the auspices of Chayeinu (the Israeli branch of Chai Lifeline). The purpose of the weekend...
Naomi Ragen and the Plagiarism Case
by Sarah Shapiro In the Jerusalem Post of February 23, 2007, I read of a plagiarism charge against the author Naomi Ragen, and was prompted by that report to inform the plaintiff’s attorney of...
Not all antisemitism is equal
Frankly, I could not care less whether Winston Churchill wrote, “The central fact which dominates the relations of Jew and non-Jew is that the Jew is ‘different.’ He looks different. He thinks differently. He...
Rabbis are not Pooper-Scoopers
The influx of one million Russian-speaking immigrants in the 1990s was a blessing for Israel, albeit a mixed one. The mass immigration provided hundreds of thousands of Jews with a chance to reconnect to...
Apologizing for a Killer
Koreans took the news hard. Lee Tae Sik, South Korea’s ambassador to the United States, suggested that Koreans in the US fast for 32 days, one day for each victim. President Roo Moo-hyun devoted...