Notes From Johannesburg
A visit to Johannesburg began with elation in the company of a thriving Torah community, and ended with a mussar shmuess from some refugees from Zimbabwe. I’m not sure that there is anything like...
Seeing Through the Eyes of the Other
Indiana Republican Congressman Todd Rokita is calling on the House of Representatives to condemn “Nation of Islam” leader Louis Farrakhan. Most of us are familiar with the racist demagogue Mr. Farrakhan’s more memorable rantings,...
Rolling Up Our Sleeves for Passover Preparation – A Response to Rabbi Haim Ovadia
(This article first appeared in the Forward. Readers can view Rabbi Menken’s bold and valiant comments in the Forward version of the article.) Passover preparation has always been a heavy-duty task. For thousands of...
YU’s Policies About Women — A Reply to Deborah Klapper
(This article originally appeared in Times of Israel.) I was dismayed to read Deborah Klapper’s blog post, Yeshiva College’s policies about women matter to us all, in which the author reprimands Yeshiva University for not...
We The People, They The Elites
I’m not one to spy anti-Semites hiding under the bed. When I was a high school Rebbi, sometimes, when erasing the blackboard (remember blackboards?), I lost control of the wood-and-felt eraser and it landed...
Queen Esther: How to be a Strong Jewish Woman in a Man’s World
by Dovid Kornreich Many years ago, after it finally dawned on me that there are some quite disturbing adult themes hidden between the lines of the first couple of chapters of the Scroll of...
Appreciating the “Simple” Jews: A Tale of Two Weddings
by Rabbi Asher Brander A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of attending two Yerushalayim weddings. I did not actually dance at both of them— the Yerushalayim traffic made sure that I uphold the...
Liberal Rabbis: Don’t Blame the Chief Rabbinate – Blame Yourselves
(This article first appeared in Arutz Sheva.) Liberal Orthodox rabbis are shooting the new Haaretz article rapid-fire through the world of social media, assuming it will help their cause and will damage the image...
Es vet helfn vi a toytn bankes
Another column of mine about Yiddish words/phrases can be read at Tabet Magazine, here.
Habeas Corpus for Horses?
Over the years, thanks to some creative, unusual talmidim I was privileged to teach when I was a mesivta Rebbe, I have had an assortment of pets (the animal sort). Each of several Purims,...