Some further clarification of the issues I raised in an earlier piece. Judging people favorably is sometimes a halachic requirement, and sometimes just an admirable trait, even when not absolutely required. Never, however, does...
by Rabbi Harvey Belovski I am enjoying the privilege of showing my eleven-year-old daughter around Israel and yesterday we spent the day grave-hopping in the Galil. We had a wonderful time, which both of...
The dedicated askanim who devote themselves day and night to solving some of our most pressing communal problems are one of the crowning glories of the Israeli chareidi community. Recently two groups of askanim...
No, this is not a defense of THE Jonathan Rosenblum article, the one that decried the cavalier attitude that some in the haredi community display towards the way their less laudable actions will be...
The following question and answer just appeared on our Jewish Answers web site, under the heading “Jewish Civil Rights:” Please tell me why Jewish people as a whole seem not to defend their civil...
An alert reader tipped me off last week to this piece from the JTA: “Latest salvo in intermarriage debate suggests a split in Jewish community.” Steven M. Cohen, a prominent Jewish sociologist, has fired...
I am back from Calgary, having enjoyed myself more than I thought, and burdened with far more guilt than I bargained for. Scholar in residence gigs can go either way. Calgary being somewhat off...
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...
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...
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...
