As Memory turns to History
In the span of less than two months, the Jewish people have lost two of its most renowned and articulate Holocaust survivors, Elie Weisel and Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis. Naturally, there is a personal loss...
Conservatism in Crisis
If the phrase “alt-right” puts you in mind of a computer keyboard, you are (blessedly) not following the presidential campaign. Even if you are aware of the phrase, though, you may not have a...
The Trump Tallis and Outsider Journalism
Who’s more likely to get us wrong – journalists far removed from our community and its thought, or academic scholars outside their field of competence? The answer should be obvious: a journalist from outside...
For Whom the Bell Doth Not Toll: The New Pew and an Elul Challenge
“If they understood the effect the chiming of the church bells had on the Jewish soul, they would never stop them.” So observed a Torah sage of a different generation, when the grandeur and...
Volozhin’s Got Talent!
Pragmatic isolationism vs. an obligation to share the Torah’s vision with non-Jewish Americans. Pose those choices to a group of charedi-identifying yeshiva students who expressed an interest in conservative politics. What would you expect...
Illusions of Objectivity
Some American journalists assigned to the political beat are having a hard time. Their dilemma is named Donald Trump, a man they don’t feel they can cover objectively. Those troubled are reporters with a...
Satmar: Do They Take Us For Fools?
I was puzzled by the anguished responses of some of my friends to the videos of children at two Satmar camps being indoctrinated in the fine art of hatred of Zionists. Publicized on Yeshiva...
Taking a Break, Making a Few Observations
After three years of documenting and critiquing various aspects of Open Orthodoxy, I am taking a break. A temporary break, but a break that I have been contemplating for some time. I would like...
News and Essays In and Out of Orthodoxy – Parshas Va’eschanan 5776
Rav Aryeh Finkel zt”l Tens of Thousands Attend Levayah of Harav Finkel, zt”l With a Heart Full of Love 1956 An Unprecedented Gathering in Support of Torah: The Untold Story – What an important video,...
Silence Can Be Golden
What’s omitted from a discussion can sometimes speak quite loudly. And sometimes quite disturbingly. That’s true, I think, about the national conversation about the Khizr and Ghazala Khan/Donald Trump contretemps. Unless you’ve been summering...