On March 4, 2005 Agudath Israel sent a letter to Dr. Tom Frieden, New York City’s Health Commissioner, estimating that in the yeshiva world half of the brisim have been conducted with matzitza b’peh,...

My friendship with, and admiration of, David Klinghoffer will survive his latest book. I hope that the good feeling is reciprocal, because I am going to have to respectfully disagree with his thesis. This...

When controversy erupts in the Torah world, should we refrain from discussing it or should we engage in respectful but frank debate? I was ambivalent about which way to go with respect to the...

She was very casual about it, as if it were common knowledge. At a meeting of Jews and Christian evangelicals working in support of Israel, I found myself speaking to a woman who was...

I am acceding to the request that I post this week�s column which deals with the claim by Jack Ukeles that 75% of Orthodox households are Modern Orthodox. If there are comments, they should...

I imagine many men (and women) want to know what it was like in the women�s section of the Jerusalem (English) Siyum of the Daf Yomi Wednesday night. My husband and I drove back...

Lay leadership or askanos is a term that can be translated as the nearly all-consuming commitment to communal activity. An askan is someone whose primary life mission is service to the klal. In my...

A translation: Siyum HaShas means Completion of the Talmud. People make a small celebration to mark the Siyum, completion, of a single tractate of Talmud or one of the six orders of the Mishnah....

So much of my time in the last few days had been spent in praise of the intellectual, that I was not fully prepared for the effect that the Siyum HaShas had on my...

The comments on my previous posting taking Edah, Ukeles and Heilman to task have been mostly critical. While there is always the possibility that those who are in agreement with me are silent, in...