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...
Is The Democratic Party Going European? — Cont’d
The following item from James Taranto’s Opinion Journal column on Tuesday cites more evidence that openly anti-Semitic comments are no longer beyond the pale for the left-wing of the Democratic Party. The item also...
Relativism Knows No Bounds
Many readers may have missed the following news item, which, to my knowledge, appeared in the JTA Daily News Briefing but almost nowhere else: Close to 50 Reform youth leaders urged the movement to...
Gay Parade:It’s OK to offend religious Jews
6 b Ellul The Homosexual Open House in Jerusalem is trying to reschedule the Gay Parade for the week preceding Rosh Hashanah. [Meanwhile, the police nixed it, so as not to offend tourists]. In...
Reform Youth on Israel’s Actions in Lebanon
A group of young American Reform Jews recently sent a letter to Reform leader Eric Yoffie, requesting that the movement “condemn the IDF’s killing of unarmed Lebanese and Palestinian civilians, as well as its...
Now Why Didn’t I Say That?
One of our avid readers brought the following quote to my attention. It doesn’t say anything we don’t already know, but it should humble us mere mortals who would never put things so elegantly...