Moving Commentary 5: Berlin
From Israel, a different chunk of the globe falls within easy travel range to the former American. Should someone have a reason or predisposition to visit Europe, frequent and cheap flights make many cities...
Hazards, Hazards Everywhere
My first earthquake was, as you might imagine, unsettling. I was part of a yeshivah in Northern California in the 1970s, and my wife and I spent our first five years of marriage there,...
Teaching Children How To Think
Then there is the one about the Russian ticket collector who accosts a Jew in one of the train cars. “What makes Jews so smart?” “Herring,” responds the Jew. “How much do you want...
The “shul” I won’t attend
Why not? Because I may not. The Orthodox Union name on food is a guarantee that it is kosher. Not so with synagogues.
Style vs. Substance and The Trump Effect
By Alexandra Fleksher Does America really want another celebrity president? Yes, as long as it is Oprah. Oprah Winfrey is as beloved as they get as a role model and source of guidance to...
Remarkable Bordering on Incredible
Senator Orrin G. Hatch’s announcement of his retirement at the end of the year brought me back to the summer of 1995. That’s when I returned to my family’s former home of Providence, Rhode...
Those Who Prey and Those Who Daven
A young woman wrote me to relate several instances in which she, a woman, was humiliated and disrespected by men who were obviously Orthodox or haredi.
The Jewish Connection
The vandalism of a Fort Smith, Arkansas mosque in 2016 by three young local men wouldn’t seem to have any Jewish connection. But it did. Or, better, it turns out that it does. The...
Fake Kashrus
Long before candidate Donald Trump ever uttered the phrase “fake news,” some of us in the Jewish world involved with media were well acquainted with the concept. From The New York Times’ description at...
Envy Isn’t Jewish
The Western Wall in Jerusalem could (and should) be a place of Jewish unity; instead, it has become for some a target of envy. How much more good would these American leaders do, were they to not increase jealousy but reduce it?