Confidentiality and the Right to Know
From time to time, I get together with a few law school profs from a different school to help them with their research on intellectual property. They are all Jewish, but have different comfort...
A Celebrity on Gemara
Many years ago, I met a mechanech (Torah educator) who had been a Pirchei Agudah leader in his younger years back in Germany. One of his young charges had submitted an original essay to...
On a more positive note
From time to time, particularly in the comments section, this site comes to seem like a wall for krexing (sic?) about all the real and imagined failings of the chareidi community and/or some of...
Just for the Record
I have never seen any point in writing a column with which every single reader will agree. (The matter, of course, is different with respect to writing about middos, whose desirability is universally acknowledged,...
Too many girls for too few boys
The morning’s Email brings word that a friend’s book Dating Secrets is about to hit better bookstores everywhere. Knowing my friend, the pseudonymous Leah Jacobs, I have not the slightest doubt that her advice...
The Trees Are Back
Thanks to our alert reader Joel Rich, we can report that the trees have returned to Seattle-Tacoma Airport: Seattle-Tacoma Airport maintenance workers returned 14 artificial Christimas tree to the terminal after a flap over...
Americans and Israel
The Slonimer Rebbe (Chanuka, pg. 38) observes that the symbolism of the approaching holiday of Chanuka includes the notion that illumination breaks through specifically from darkness. Both the community and every individual Jew must...
El Al Again
By now I presume it is clear to all and sundry that I know no more about the likely outcome of the El Al boycott than anyone else. I only know what I read...
Burning Down Our Own Neighborhoods Again
When I wrote my previous pieces about the violence surrounding the Gay Pride Parade, I was unaware of a recent incident that took place while I was out of the country. A clothes store...
Daas Torah: The Core Values
Talk about Daas Torah, be prepared for acrimony. There are few topics more divisive among Orthodox Jews. Many are given to dealing with the issue only with the volume up, making it difficult for...