Posted on: November 5th, 2008

Has there ever been a lamer duck than George W. Bush? How he went from winning a clear majority of the 2004 popular vote to his current dismal showing is a topic that will fascinate future historians.

Posted on: November 5th, 2008

An increasing number of Jews, including Israeli Jews, say Israel has no real leaders and that few Diaspora Jewish organizational heads will sacrifice their cushy positions for Israel – a country beloved by God but rendered repulsive by more than 40 years of lethal Saudi- and Soros-funded propaganda and by the internal corruptions that plague all nations but are particularly dangerous to Jews when they behave this way in a Jewish state.

Posted on: November 5th, 2008

The religious Jewish dating scene is severely broken. In the secular world men and women date by meeting each other at co-ed schools institutions or at events like parties and weekend getaways.

Posted on: October 29th, 2008

Politics in America is a contact sport. Passions flare and the rhetoric can get heated and nasty. Political parties stoke these fires, playing on people’s fears as a key fund-raising tactic.

Posted on: October 29th, 2008

The impact of the country’s economic crisis is being felt far and wide, and most, if not all, of us are being forced to cut back on non-essential spending. Being frum, however, is expensive. New clothes for Yom Tov; a lulav and esrog; fish, chicken, and meat every Shabbos; yeshiva tuition -- the list goes on and on. What results is a never-ending series of expenses that seems overwhelming and inescapable.

Posted on: October 29th, 2008

Although the presidential election is still several days away, it is safe to say that Democratic candidate Barack Obama has secured the lion’s share of American Jewish votes.

Posted on: October 29th, 2008

The California Supreme Court’s ruling last spring striking down that state’s ban against same-sex marriage created a tremendous uproar throughout the country. Religious groups, including Orthodox Jewry, railed against this fundamental challenge to the historically accepted definition of marriage as the union between a man and a woman.

Posted on: October 22nd, 2008

No doubt inspired by the perverse Holocaust conference sponsored two years ago by Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, student members of the Islamist Basij militia published a book of cartoons mocking and minimizing the Shoah just in time for a festive distribution at a Tehran rally for Al-Quds Day. The annual hate-fest glorifies the Palestinian cause and is an opportunity for Iranians to wildly denounce Israel and America and bemoan the continuing presence of Jews in Jerusalem.

Posted on: October 22nd, 2008

Why should Jewish parents homeschool their children? King Solomon said we must “train a youth according to his way.” In other words, we must teach a child according to how he or she learns best. Thus, the Torah’s basis for homeschooling.

Posted on: October 22nd, 2008

When Ephraim Halevy has something to say, people listen. And Halevy, former chief of the Mossad, does not believe Israelis should be involved in American politics. The Obama camp, apparently, thinks otherwise.

Posted on: October 22nd, 2008

I am a child of the ‘60s. I learned to play guitar to music from the Rabbis’ Sons, Shlomo Carlebach and Lennon and McCartney. When we had a kumsitz at our youth functions we would intersperse Simon and Garfunkel music with songs from the Six-Day War. In 1970 I accompanied Rabbi Carlebach when he played an impromptu concert at Zion Square in Jerusalem.

Posted on: October 22nd, 2008

Last month, millions of Americans opened their Sunday newspapers and found amid the usual pile of coupons and advertising flyers something unusual: a free DVD of a documentary called “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War with the West.”

Posted on: October 15th, 2008

As I had done every weekday morning for the past few years, I opened the door of my apartment on September 30 to pick up my copy of the New York Sun. Immediately, I spotted the headline above the fold announcing the paper’s demise. No surprise, of course. All of us who counted ourselves as the Sun’s friends knew this day was coming.

Posted on: October 15th, 2008

Why do liberal Jews have such a problem with Sarah Palin? One would think that the die-hard feminists in the Jewish community would trumpet the ascension of a woman to the second spot on a presidential ticket, much as they did over two decades ago when Geraldine Ferraro took center stage with Walter Mondale in a quixotic attempt to unseat Ronald Reagan.

Posted on: October 15th, 2008

A casualty of the Left’s hatred for President George W. Bush has been a destructive inability to separate fact from fiction in the ongoing history of the war in Iraq. The latest case, which, sadly, has dug its way into the head of the Democratic presidential nominee, is the allegation that American troops, when they liberated Baghdad in April 2003, were not welcome as liberators.

Posted on: October 15th, 2008

Here is the campaign speech I wish John McCain or Barack Obama would deliver: If I were a typical, hardworking wage earner uninvolved in the full-time practice of government and

Posted on: October 15th, 2008

As a patriotic Jewish American, I care deeply about Israel’s well-being and security as well as that of our own country.

Posted on: October 8th, 2008

On the threat from Iran, there is some good news, some bad news and some even worse news. The good news: Both presidential candidates think the prospect of Iran going nuclear is a bad thing.

Posted on: October 8th, 2008

The innovative idea for kashrut certification called Hekhsher Tzedek is now making inroads in the Jewish world and gaining the attention of the secular press as well. In a nutshell, Hekhsher Tzedek calls for a supplemental certification of a food company beyond compliance with the laws of kashrut to include certification that it conducts its business ethically.

Posted on: October 8th, 2008

I grew up in a Modern Orthodox Jewish community in Miami Beach. Nearly all of my childhood friends remain observant.