Posted on: February 11th, 2009

The United States and much of the rest of the world are in a depression, a word that apparently must be avoided, perhaps in the hope that if we do not say it the bad news will go away.

Posted on: February 11th, 2009

It’s very difficult when a democratic country has to confront an illegal terrorist group. Whatever we do is being photographed; whatever they do, nobody sees. For example, when they throw a rocket on a settlement in Israel, it’s not being photographed. You cannot see a mother trying to defend her child and the resultant sleepless night. Have you ever seen on television a sleepless night?

Posted on: February 11th, 2009

Initially dismayed at the phenomenon, we have by now grown used to seeing pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas demonstrators behave like Holocaust-era Nazis. These haters goose-step, Nazi-style, and shoot out their arms as they deliver the Hitlerian sieg heil salute. They also chant and scream such charming slogans as “Jews to the ovens,” “Hitler did not kill enough of you” and “Jews to the gas chambers.”

Posted on: February 4th, 2009

Other than God Himself, Judaism values nothing greater than life. Life is the ultimate gift from God. Without life, none of the riches of creation is available to us. Without life, the great adventure of our lives – our embrace of the Holy – is impossible.

Posted on: February 4th, 2009

Moshe was looking for employment (he wasn’t cut out to learn full-time), and was having a difficult time finding the right fit. Sometimes he went weeks without even landing an interview, and he rarely made it past the first round. People began to speculate that there was something wrong with Moshe, and his self-esteem took a blow every time he heard of someone else who found a job.

Posted on: February 4th, 2009

I regret to report on the ascendance of an American Jewish version of Replacement Theology and a corresponding new American Jewish Bible. These have been adopted primarily in the Reform and secular sectors, as well as in the overlapping wider societal groups of Democrat Party faithful, academia, and the media establishment.

Posted on: February 4th, 2009

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had a temper tantrum at the Davos forum on world economics.

Posted on: February 4th, 2009

There is no rain in Israel. The weather is sunny and warm.That is bad news.

Posted on: January 28th, 2009

Everyone knows the story. Moshiach finally arrives and goes from shul to shul telling the Jews it’s time to go home to Eretz Yisrael. But wherever Moshiach goes he is rejected because of his dress, his yarmulke, his hat or his accent. Eventually, in frustration, he simply leaves.

Posted on: January 28th, 2009

Do you “get shul?” Do we as a community of people praying in shul for thousands of years actually get what it is, or what it is supposed to be? A year or two ago I would have answered one way. Now, having served as director of the Pepa and Rabbi Joseph Karasick Department of Synagogue Services at the Orthodox Union for almost a year and a half, my answer has changed.

Posted on: January 28th, 2009

The guns are now stilled. Criticism and debate, suggestion and advice, censure and fault-finding are being unleashed – as befits a Jewish society to which analysis and self-search are as natural as sunrise and sunset are to the realm of nature.

Posted on: January 28th, 2009

Israel was at war, and though I live across the ocean, I felt like I was on high alert. Strangely enough, I was actually grateful to have experienced this feeling during the crisis.

Posted on: January 21st, 2009

Five years ago, George W. Bush finished the last good year of his presidency. Things were looking up. The Democratic front-runners seeking their party’s presidential nomination lauded the historic accomplishments in Iraq, particularly Saddam Hussein’s capture.

Posted on: January 21st, 2009

Over the past few weeks Jews have been in the news and made headlines around the world, creating immeasurable reverberations. The impact of three particular Jews has been tremendous – but the difference in that impact has been at least as important as the impact itself.

Posted on: January 21st, 2009

Throughout his presidency, George W. Bush was a stalwart friend of the Jewish people. His support for Israel was as rock solid as his opposition to anti-Semitism, levels of which have been rising alarmingly around the world in recent years.

Posted on: January 21st, 2009

We are all familiar with the general impact the weak economy has had on our lives or on the lives of those around us. What we may not appreciate is the way it has affected personal relationships, within our own community and throughout the world.

Posted on: January 21st, 2009

Dear Dr. H:You write about how Judaism is devoted to the pursuit of peace. You bring assorted citations from the Bible and Psalms about how nice peace can be. You emphasize that Judaism grants peace priority over competing goals. You find biblical quote after biblical quote about how good peace is.

Posted on: January 14th, 2009

And yet the slurs continue. On December 31, Paramount Vantage released “Defiance,” which tells the story of Tuvia, Asael, and Zus Bielski, three Jewish brothers from a tiny village in Nazi-occupied Belarus. They formed a guerrilla unit in the dense woods, created a makeshift village from ghetto escapees and, in the end, saved some 1,200 Jews from Hitler. The Bielski brothers have long deserved to be mentioned with Oskar Schindler and the fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Posted on: January 14th, 2009

Yesterday I made an extraordinary and moving shiva visit at the home of the Netanel family, whose son Yonatan was killed last week in Gaza. Unfortunately, he and two other soldiers died when an Israeli tank mistakenly opened fire on a house captured by Israeli soldiers. His father, Rabbi Amos Netanel, was a student at our yeshiva in Kiryat Arba for several years.

Posted on: January 14th, 2009

Since claiming the presidency, Barack Obama has been universally praised by foreign leaders as a breath of fresh air for American diplomacy. On Dec. 27, however, world leaders' jubilant anticipation of his inauguration took a back seat as Israel began its current operation in Gaza and questions arose as to how the incoming president would respond to the conflict.