Can Jews Be Antisemites?
A few months ago, I asked Natan Sharansky if he thought Jews could be antisemites. He looked at me like I had just claimed to be Elvis, emerging from a few decades of quiet...
Two from The Weekly Standard
Two articles, both published Friday on The Weekly Standard’s web site, approach profoundly different issues with a surfeit of common sense. The first is called “High Profile: What American airport security can learn from...
Reform Youth –Cont’d
I just had a look at the full text of the statement of Reform youth leaders, not just the parts that have been widely quoted. It is not only the ready acquiescence in Amnesty...
A Great WordPress Feature
With WordPress, you can change the time stamp on your messages as you write them — and they won’t be published until you want them to be. All I need to do is check...
Are We Getting Spammed by Fox News?
About two months ago, we started getting comments from “manheim,” whose email address is a short and invalid address at AOL. All the comments have been — at most — marginally relevant to the...
A Night at the Opera
OK, it wasn’t the opera. I don’t do opera. Kol isha, and all that. It was really the Hollywood Bowl, and the LA Philharmonic. I don’t do that too often either (the last time...
Grisha’s Choice
A few days ago, I posted a piece about Grigory Perelman, the Jewish mathematician who solved the Poincaré conjecture. One of our readers, a Russian-Jewish mathematician of considerable attainment himself, sent me a private...
Conservative Movement Seen Ending Ban on Gays
Nah, no one saw this coming: In what will be a watershed moment for the Conservative movement — akin to admitting women into the rabbinate a generation ago — the ordination of openly gay...
Moved to Tears
Well, not literally — but when I read the following comment to an earlier post, I did think about it. The topic then was a Slate magazine article which covered Ismar Schorsch’s “parting shots”...
When the Faithful Succumb to Temptation
An editorial in Friday’s Wall Street Journal regarding a new campaign of the Internal Revenue Service raises an alarming issue for religious communities. It reports that the IRS has newly expanded its Political Activity...