My White House Chanukah
If you should ever happen to find yourself in an ornate, high-ceilinged room and a military-uniformed classical string ensemble is segueing from a flawless rendition of a Bach Concerto to an equally impressive (if...
Standards, Comments, and Chabad
I wonder if the editor would comment on this blog’s rules of acceptable discourse. Without prejudice either way on the claims being made, I wonder if the charges being made were leveled at charedi/mo...
Family Affair
The speaker was a bit reluctant, unaccustomed to standing before an audience. Yet there she stood in Los Angeles, her hometown, at a dinner hosted by a Southern California Jewish campus outreach organization, the...
A Torah Revolution in Need of Troops
There are currently 800 secular Jewish women in Israel looking for a chareidi woman with whom to learn Torah over the phone, and no study partner available. “Couldn’t be,” you’ll say. But, unfortunately, it...
OU’s Statement on the Passing of President Ford
The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, the nation’s largest Orthodox Jewish Umbrella organization mourns the death of former President Gerald R. Ford. Mr. Ford, our country’s 38th president, took office amid tremendous...
My Debate With Dennis Prager
I debated Dennis Prager yesterday – and survived! The OU was looking for a strong closing session for its West Coast Torah Convention, and there are very few proven draws as strong as Dennis,...
Holocaust Denial is No Joke
I doubt that last week’s gathering of Holocaust deniers in Teheran, convened by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, registered high on the radar screen of many in our community –d at least until a small...
Let Them Put on Tefillin
by Rabbi Dovid Eliezrie Menelaus would have been proud. He was the Hellenistic high priest installed by Antiochus who championed the battle against traditional Jews that brought about the holiday of Hanukka. Not much...
Consumer Alert: Menorah Fire Hazard
I was sent the following by someone here in Baltimore, but the product is distributed from Brooklyn and could be available nationwide. Please be on the alert for this product: I’m writing this letter...
Mr. Dawkins misfires
Reviewers have not been kind to The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, professor of something called “the public understanding of science” at Oxford. Critics have found it to be the atheist’s mirror image of...