Make Tehillim Sing!
“This new translation of Tehillim will change your life!” My friend in Johannesburg was exultant. I reacted with the enthusiasm of one who contemplated spending an hour looking over a list of new offerings...
Agreeing to Disagree
I understand the justification for placing Louis Farrakhan and a company shunning business in the West Bank on the same spectrum, if far from each other. But no one should be puzzled by my...
Airbnb: Why I Disagree
Rabbi Shafran has a good point. The crux of the matter, indeed, is that the two of us, friendship aside, employ very different definitions of anti-Semitism. Rabbi Shafran prefers his definition, he tells us,...
Open Orthodoxy Update, Parshas Miketz
From support of “alternative lifestyles” contrary to Torah to celebrating opposition to Israel, Open Orthodoxy continues to outdo itself — even hiring a PR firm to promote their departures from traditional Judaism.
Still, Small, Defiant Lights
I’m always struck by the contrast this time of year between, on the one hand, the garish multicolored and blinking lights that scream for attention from so many American homes and, on the other,...
Not All Discrimination is Hatred-Fueled
Finally! Something my cherished chaver Rabbi Yitzchak Adlerstein and I can agreeably disagree about. Though, alas, I don’t think the disagreement is as weighty as he thinks. Rather than recap our respective positions, they...
Airbnb is Anti-Semitic
I rarely disagree with my good friend Rabbi Avi Shafran, even privately. Public disagreement between us is rarer then good single malt being left unfinished at a high-end kiddush. Friends, it must be time...
No, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Did Not Sin Against The Memory Of The Holocaust
We do no favors to the memory of the Holocaust when, for political purposes, we unfairly accuse people of dishonoring it. Whatever one may think of incoming Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, she did not compare...
Crazy Attention
“The sheerest form of corporate anti-Semitism in recent memory” is how popular political commentator Ben Shapiro characterized the recent decision of Airbnb, the San Francisco-based company that matches travelers with private home lodging around...
Maybe There’s a Reason the Rabbi Did Not Make the Rabbinate’s List
The Rabbanut just released its list of approved batei din in the Diaspora for geirus. The list has some quite obsolete data and some other perhaps unexpected inclusions, but its issuance is an overall...