Returning Home to Auschwitz
If anyone can add more prose or more tears to the story of Auschwitz, it isn’t me. I’m on my way back from a few days in the Killing Fields, thanks to one of...
What Do They Study At Yeshivas?
By Elon Gilad Roughly one in six Israeli Jewish men aged 20-24 is a full-time student at a Jewish academy or yeshiva. In fact, more Israeli men are studying in yeshivas and kollels (Jewish...
Ample Room for Optimism
If only people today knew what a telegram was, the old joke about the typical Jewish one reading “Start worrying. Details to follow” would be apropos, at least to the pessimists among us, in...
Don’t Be So Quick To Dismiss Critical Thinking and An Orderly Environment
By Rabbi Shaya Karlinsky While I do not live in Beit Shemesh, I am privileged to have over one hundred twenty alumni families who have studied with us at Shapell’s and Midreshet Rachel over...
Rabbi Farber: Rabbi Lau is on the Mark
Rabbi Seth Farber, director of the ITIM organization, has been an outspoken, long-term critic of the Israeli Chief Rabbinate. Please click here to read my response to Rabbi Farber’s new critique of Rabbi David...
After Beit Shemesh: What Has Changed, What Hasn’t, and What Shouldn’t
You’d think that they were talking about the much-touted red wave of the US elections. In the aftermath of the Beit Shemesh mayoral upset, all sorts of pundits are weighing in about why thousands...
A Plan Whose Time Hasn’t Come
Executing my duty as a citizen, I once sat on a jury. It was an edifying experience, leaving me to conclude that the jury system, at least in its current form, is utterly absurd....
A Different Chareidi Perspective From Beit Shemesh
As we promised, here is a different POV on the electoral upset in the Beit Shemesh mayoral race, a rebuttal to the earlier letter. by Yoni Samber My story has some similarities to David...
Post-Pittsburgh: Capital Punishment, and Jews with Guns
Should accused Pittsburgh murderer Robert Bowers be given the death penalty if convicted? Representatives of liberal Jewry have basically responded with a resounding “No”. In a new Washington Post article, two leading Conservative rabbis and...
Election Day in Israel: The Pleasant and the Perplexing
Election Day here in Israel is a legal holiday, which might be a good idea. Because people are in a better mood, the tension and charged atmosphere of intense campaigning is dissipated somewhat by...