Reform vs. Reform
For those still in doubt whether the Reform movement has become a wing of the Democratic Party, the results of last week’s Convention may resolve the question. According to the Washington Jewish Week, the...
The End of Heterodoxy?
Ori Pomerantz is one of our more frequent commenters. He asked the following question as a comment to a previous post, seeking “our” response. So I sent the question around, and determined that several...
Meshi-Zahav: From Outcast to Hero?
When I lived in Israel, Yehuda Meshi-Zahav was often in the news — and never on the “right” side of the editorials. He was quoted as a spokesman for “ultra-Orthodox” demonstrators, protesting this or...
Harry Miers and the Israeli Heter-o-dox Problem II
In my last post, I addressed the rather pessimistic prognosis of prominent Israeli Reform clergyman David Forman regarding the heterodox movements in Israel, and alluded that a recent JPost by David Golinkin might help...
Are We Still Am Echad?
Four days ago, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the leader of the Reform movement, gave what he called a sermon to the delegates attending the General Assembly of the Union for Reform Judaism. This was a...
Election Daze
The Knesset has approved dissolution, and, one way or the other, it seems that Israel will be heading to the polls on March 28. According to yesterday’s Jerusalem Post (yes, I regret not posting...
Hashavas Aveidah
UPDATED: A tallis and two pairs of tefillin were found in the Montreal airport… and contact has already been made between finder and owner. Thanks to at least one C-C reader who participated in...
Israel’s Judicial Tyranny
For years, Jonathan Rosenblum has written about the antics of Israel’s Supreme Court and its Chief Justice Aharon Barak. For most of those years it seemed few outside the Orthodox world were listening, but...
Toward a Renewed Jewish Identity
Last month I argued that Israel’s long-range survival depends upon substantially strengthening the Jewish component of Israeli identity (“Jews and Staying Power,” Oct. 21, 2005). Only a reinvigorated Jewish identity can provide the internal...
The Fire Now
Though the cost in lives and to the economy from the more than two weeks of urban riots in France does not rival that from the July 7 suicide bombs in London, the former...