DUI and the Toxicity of Ordinariness
Many of us in Los Angeles were not prepared for the frank language we heard in shul on Shabbos. Moreover, it didn’t come from some visitors, but from the rov. Aleinu is an Orthodox...
Why I Am A Boring Guest
by Rabbi Harvey Belovski What do the following four women have in common? · Andrea: management consultant, graduate of a seminary in Israel, summa cum laude graduate in business management, volunteer for a Jewish...
Is Everything a Jewish Issue?
The NY Jewish Week includes an article called “Mending G-d’s Garment.” The subtitle? “Synagogues attempt to save the earth, one compact fluorescent Ner Tamid at a time.” As you might expect, it’s about synagogues...
A Heretic in the Church – I
So I noticed a news item in the latest Forward reporting that the important-sounding Jewish People Policy Planning Institute, whose job it is, apparently, to plan policy for all the Jews, has relented to...
Turning Down the Noise
One of the most important revolutions in the American Torah world over the past three decades has been the explosion of post-high school learning programs in Israel. Thirty years ago there were two or...
Free Will and its Deniers
The belief in man’s elevation over the animals is under assault in the West. Denial of free will – and with it the possibility of morality – is central to that attack. If man...
The Herd Mentality
by Rabbi Harvey Belovski The astonishing capacity of Judaism to welcome disagreement, tolerate and even validate a range of views (albeit within the system) on almost every issue is, in my opinion, one of...
Heroic Measures
A recent report from Jenin got me thinking. Residents of the West Bank city have hung a large picture of Saddam Hussein in the refugee-quarter’s central square. A local commander of the Fatah-aligned Al...
This Sunday in Jerusalem….
For those in Jerualem or for those who have friends who can get to Jerusalem this Sunday, Jan. 28 (9b’Shvat). I described the launching of a most unusual Holocaust project in my Jerusalem Post...
Some Observations To Make Benefit The Glorious Jewish Nation
Readers of Commentary know Joshua Muravchik as a regular and astute observer of political and security affairs for that periodical. That’s why an article by Muravchik, who is also a resident scholar at the...