Posted on: August 19th, 2009

Elul is here, the month of teshuvah, of repentance. I had the privilege recently of visiting the gadol Rabbi Moshe Shternbuch in Yerushalayim. He said the following: “What is in the newspapers is of no importance, and what is of importance is not in the newspapers. We have nothing to fear from the president of Iran; God watches over His children. The only matter of importance, the only thing that affects us, is the relationship between the Ribbono Shel Olam and the children of Israel.”

Posted on: August 19th, 2009

While most American Christians, especially evangelicals, support Israel, there has for some time now been a trend among European churches and their liberal counterparts in the U.S. such as the World Council of Churches, to criticize Israel, pass divestment motions and support Palestinian extremism.

Posted on: August 19th, 2009

We were in Jerusalem on our annual visit to Israel when ugly street demonstrations erupted in the wake of charges that a haredi mother had nearly starved her child to death. Those demonstrations, which turned into full-blown riots, constitute a brand new chapter in the annals of chillul Hashem.

Posted on: August 12th, 2009

After running into a dead-end in its efforts to jump-start Middle East peace talks, the Obama administration has signaled that it has evaluated the situation and understands that all is not well. But instead of a course correction, senior administration officials have decided what they need to do is deploy their most effective weapon – the rhetorical brilliance of the president himself – on a recalcitrant state of Israel.

Posted on: August 12th, 2009

When radio host Don Imus crudely insulted the young African-American ladies on the Rutgers women’s basketball team, then-Senator Barack Obama called for Imus to be fired.

Posted on: August 12th, 2009

The recent arrests of several New Jersey rabbis, coming on the heels of a variety of other scandals in Jewish life that also resulted in prominent arrests, have led many to conclude that Orthodoxy is in crisis and its entire worldview under siege and perhaps unsustainable.

Posted on: August 12th, 2009

When Barack Obama was elected president, many around the world saw it as the culmination of decades of successful efforts by the American civil rights movement. How ironic, then, that the Obama administration has been conducting a campaign against Jews who wish to live in certain Jerusalem neighborhoods.

Posted on: August 5th, 2009

Walk into any shul in almost any neighborhood on Shabbos and you can be forgiven for thinking you have mistakenly stepped into a nursery. The same goes for almost any Jewish wedding hall, where it takes as much skill to navigate the obstacle course of baby strollers as it does to look good on the dance floor.

Posted on: August 5th, 2009

Do we ever learn from our past? We have just lived through the saddest time of the Jewish year, when our collective thoughts turned to the destruction of our Holy Temple, and the root causes for that destruction.

Posted on: August 5th, 2009

Two of my four children live in places defined as “settlements” and are therefore characterized by most of the secular press as “obstacles to peace.” But if the journalists who use such terminology ever spent time there, among those idealistic and brave Jews, they might have to rethink their definition.

Posted on: August 5th, 2009

Larry Franklin, the third man in the sordid AIPAC affair, is not an entirely sympathetic figure. Although a person of sincerity and religious devotion, he agreed to testify against former AIPAC officials Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman in the trumped-up case forged by the FBI.

Posted on: August 5th, 2009

Last week, when Jews around the world recited the traditional Tisha B'Av lamentations focusing on the destruction of the ancient Temple in Jerusalem, a number of communities added a lamentation referring to a much more recent tragedy – the failure of the Allies to bomb the Auschwitz death camp in 1944.

Posted on: July 29th, 2009

“What did we learn?” is the question posed at the end of “The Accomplices,” Bernard Weinraub’s play about the mission to America of Peter Bergson, who, in 1940, was sent by Vladimir Jabotinsky to rouse the Roosevelt administration to save the Jews of Europe.

Posted on: July 29th, 2009

Pope Benedict XVI recently called on the Catholic community to promote human rights and bring an end to poverty. The pope’s directive, laden with biblical charges and humanistic principles, spurns deregulation and freedom from taxes and instead focuses on addressing the root causes of poverty and ensuring universal access to basic human needs such as clean water, sustenance, health, education and employment.

Posted on: July 29th, 2009

What’s so important about the Fifteenth of Av? It’s a day like any other day, right? Our sages tell us that on that day, some 3,300 years ago, in the Moabite Desert opposite Jericho, a miracle occurred. After the incident of the spies, God told our ancestors that the generation that had left Egypt would not enter the Land of Israel. Instead, their children would inherit the Land.

Posted on: July 29th, 2009

The Orthodox Jewish wedding season commences each year after Lag B’Omer and again after Tisha B'Av. In the weeks prior to those dates we watch the mail for the wedding invitations we receive – and notice the ones we do not. Sometimes we receive invitations to weddings and cannot figure out why we were invited; other times we wonder why a friend or acquaintance has not invited us to a simcha.

Posted on: July 29th, 2009

Soon after Cambridge police arrested and handcuffed Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. on a disorderly conduct charge, they realized the black man they wanted to prosecute was a renowned academic. As a result, he was released and the charges against him were dropped.

Posted on: July 22nd, 2009

I love books. I love our sacred Jewish texts and the many splendid commentaries that accompany them, but in truth all leather-bound, gold-embossed books call out to me. Verily, I am a person of the book. I read books, I write them, I consume them.

Posted on: July 22nd, 2009

You may applaud the idea of ordaining women rabbis, or you may recoil in horror at the prospect, but the simple fact remains that women already serve the Orthodox world in clergy-like positions.

Posted on: July 15th, 2009

Date: November 2, 2068Place: Edward Said University, Paris, Islamic Republic of Northern Gaul.Subject: Notes from the Special Guest Lecture today in the course "History of the Middle East," by visiting professor Osama bin Levy.