The Emphasis on Empathy
I suppose it’s not so strange that I put the two experiences together. They happened a mere day apart and both involved buses. The first incident astounded me. As I stood in a line...
AOC and Israel
An article I wrote for JTA about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Israel can be read here.
The Hermit Horror Kingdom
To his great credit, President Trump didn’t allow the testimony of his former lawyer Michael Cohen before a Congressional committee to pressure him into making a deal at all costs with North Korea. It...
The More Things Change… Rav Soloveitchik’s Derasha on Talmud Torah and Kabbalas Ol Malchus Shamayim
The issues confronting the Orthodox community of today, as novel as they seem, are in large measure reruns of the same issues half a century ago. And those same issues were reruns of the...
I’m In!
There’s no point in further delaying the news. I will soon be officially announcing my candidacy for the presidency of the United States. Most everyone else has done so and I don’t want to...
The Old Lady and the Triathlon
“I had to give up competing in Triathlons in America. I thought when I come to Israel I will now be able to resume. I was crestfallen to learn the triathlons are on Shabbat,...
We Dare Not Ignore the Context: A Reply to Rabbi Yitzchak Blau
Rabbi Yitzchak Blau just posted a strident critique of my writings about Open Orthodoxy. I had not written about Open Orthodoxy for quite a while, and even when doing so, my articles on the...
Jewish Action Magazine, Peshat in Tanach, and Jimmy the Greek
Jean Calas learned the hard way that reading a dubious peshat into a pasuk can be fatal. Mr. Calas, a Protestant, was tortured to death in 1762 on the spurious charge of having murdered...
Is Socialism Looming?
Back in 1947, a public relations firm called Whitaker and Baxter, hired by the American Medical Association, created a term to disparage President Harry Truman’s proposal for a national health-care system. It was a...