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...
No, Mr. Lauder, Israel is not Descending into Theocracy
A piece I wrote for Forward about Ronald Lauder’s recent op-ed in the New York Times can be read here.
Open Orthodoxy Update, Parshas Tzav
Another update on the journey of Open Orthodoxy, and its universal rejection by every reputable Orthodox body.
Tone-Deaf Jewish Marketing
I began haphazardly collecting the advertisements a number of years ago. The first, which appeared at the end of Tammuz in a Jewish periodical, touted an eatery. It was apparently aimed at carnivores troubled...
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...
Amusing, And, Then Again, Not So Much
You’d think it was a Purim joke. But, no, “Operation Schtickle Pioneer” is a thing. At least in one person’s mind. Did you know that a Jewish cabal is planning to make “large areas...
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...