Islamist Historiography
Last week, I was privileged to attend a lecture by Bernard Lewis at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The audience greeted the nonagenarian scholar with a degree of reverence and adulation that probably no...
Where is the video of the bus incident?
When I first read about the lady on the #2 bus, I was inclined to cheer her on. From the sound of it, the behavior of the men was appalling, and she got some...
Knowing our Limits
A group of five feminists, including novelist Naomi Ragen, has petitioned BaGaTz against the Mehadrin lines maintained by two publicly-subsidized bus companies: Egged and Dan. Petitioners do not demand the immediate cessation of Mehadrin...
Burning Issue — The Revised Version
At Agudath Israel of America, before taking a political or social stance, launching a new effort or offering educational material, we look to our rabbinic leadership for guidance. Although we obviously do not bother...
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...