Book Reviews

Posted on: March 15th, 2013

It might still be two weeks to Pesach, but is never too early to start thinking about Afikomen presents.

A Chassidic Classic For Readers Of All Backgrounds

Posted on: March 13th, 2013

Reading Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein’s Essays On the Weekly Parsha Based on Nesivos Shalom I could not help thinking of the old warning that “a young man who wishes to remain an unbeliever cannot be too careful of his reading.”

Tevye in the Promised Land, Chapter Thirty: Waters of Eden

Posted on: March 12th, 2013

What was a man, Tevye thought, that one moment he could be so filled with power and seemingly invincible force, and the next moment a motionless pile of flesh?

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Tevye in the Promised Land, Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Plague

Posted on: March 5th, 2013

The next chapter in the award winning novel.

Title: Without Red Strings Or Holy Water: Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah

Posted on: February 28th, 2013

Rabbi Moses Maimonides (1135-1204) was a halachist par excellence, philosopher, physician, and a political leader of the Jewish community at the ibn Ezra Synagogue of Egypt. Born in Cordovero, Spain and caused to flee a fanatical Muslim sect, the Rambam travelled to Morocco, Eretz Yisrael, Alexandria, and then served as a physician in the court of the Sultan in Cairo Fostat.

Title: In One Era, Out the Other A Memoir of 20th-21st Century Jewish Life

Posted on: February 28th, 2013

Each one of us finds ourselves at the center of six generations of history. We hear the echoes of our grandparents’ era and see the beginnings of that of our grandchildren and we hope and endeavor to be the fulfillment of the hopes of one and the inspiration of the other.

Tevye in the Promised Land, Chapter Twenty-Eight: Waiting for the Baron

Posted on: February 26th, 2013

When word arrived that Baron Edmond Rothschild was coming for a visit, with none other than the famous Dr. Chaim Weizmann, the colony turned into a frantic beehive of activity.

You Can Tell This Book By Its Covers

Posted on: February 21st, 2013

You can tell Rabbi Yossy Goldman’s book From Where I Stand: Life Messages from the Weekly Torah Reading by its covers. The front cover is a photograph of a rabbi in a shul that is full of light.

Title: A Neuropsychologist’s Journal: Interventions and “Judi-isms”

Posted on: February 20th, 2013

I was recently invited to review A Neuropsychologist's Journal: Interventions and “Judi-isms.” Normally this wouldn't take me long as I would get the gist of the book by quickly skimming through it. Instead I found myself engrossed in reading this book word by word, cover to cover. The short chapters had me hungrily turning the 459 pages for more, and at times, I just could not put it down.

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Tevye in the Promised Land, Chapter Twenty-Seven: Hodel Leaves Perchik

Posted on: February 18th, 2013

Overnight, Tevye's new cottage became a warm, haimisher home...

Tevye in the Promised Land, Chapter Twenty-Six: Tevye Takes a Wife

Posted on: February 11th, 2013

  Both of Elisha’s two grown daughters were golden-skinned, beautiful, devoutly religious, and nearly half Tevye’s age. The eldest daughter, Carmel, was naturally the first choice of the parents, but Elisha told Tevye he could marry whomever he picked. Embarrassed by the whole distressing business, and wanting the matter to be concluded as discreetly as [...]

Tevye in the Promised Land, Chapter Twenty-Five: Tevye Cures the Muktar’s Daughter

Posted on: February 4th, 2013

     On the arranged date, the Jews set out to survey the land which their Arab neighbors wanted to sell. The Muktar Abdulla graciously sent them a guide who showed them the way through the mountains to his village. Traveling on horseback, the journey up and down the hillsides and valleys took them two [...]

LGBT Jews Excited About Kids’ Purim Book With Two Dads

Posted on: January 31st, 2013

In honor of the upcoming Jewish holiday of Purim, gay news site Queerty is encouraging LGBT Jews to buy a new book featuring a Jewish boy with two fathers, the first of its kind to bring Judaism, children, and homosexuality together.

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Tevye in the Promised Land, Chapter Twenty-Four: Morasha

Posted on: January 28th, 2013

The Jewish Colony Association had chosen the mountainous location not for its suitability as farmland, but because of its price. When more and more Jews began immigrating to Palestine, the Turkish government began doubling and tripling the cost of the land until parcels were often ten times more expensive than farmland in Europe. The Baron [...]

NY Book Takes Top 2012 National Jewish Book Award

Posted on: January 21st, 2013

A history of New York Jewry took Jewish book of the year honors in the 2012 National Jewish Book Awards.

Tevye in the Promised Land, Chapter Twenty-Three: A New Kind of Jew

Posted on: January 21st, 2013

All of Tevye’s life, it seemed like he was always saying good-bye. Back in the old country, what now seemed like lifetimes ago, his Hodel had left him for Perchik. Then Hava had run off with her gentile, and Shprintza had drowned. Then the heart and soul of his being, his devoted wife, Golda, had [...]

Title: Harry Fischel: Pioneer of Jewish Philanthropy: Forty Years of Struggle for a Principle and the Years Beyond

Posted on: January 16th, 2013

The Jewish people have been blessed with a plethora of biographies and memoirs about our rabbis, educators, philanthropists and community leaders. Unfortunately, many that were published in previous generations have been lost to history, and the impacts that many noteworthy individuals had on our people have been largely forgotten.

Tevye in the Promised Land, Chapter Twenty-Two: A Visit to the Yeshiva

Posted on: January 15th, 2013

 Not only was Tevye’s family going to be together, they were going to be rich! The Baron’s gift of 5000 francs would make them the new aristocrats of Palestine. But Tevye’s daydreaming didn’t last long. When he heard that Nachman was planning on returning the money, Tevye nearly fell out of the wagon.      “I [...]

Title: Lexical Studies in the Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Inscriptions: The Collected Essays of Hayim Tawil

Posted on: January 10th, 2013

This excellent, delightful and lucid collection represents some of the best in academic research. Philological, lexicographical, linguistic, epigraphical, cultural, mythological, ritualistic, and historical knowledge are informed by virtuosity in comparative ancient Semitic languages. These erudite studies by the high-powered academic scholarship of Hayim Tawil – a professor of Hebrew languages and literature at Yeshiva University – shed light on Biblical Hebrew, the whole field of Ancient Near Eastern studies, medieval exegetical traditions, and the reception history of the Biblical text from antiquity to the present day.

Title: The Rarest Blue

Posted on: January 10th, 2013

I’ve always had an interest in the intersect between halacha, history, and archaeology. It is this interest that led me to research and write about the status of Purim in modern-day Israeli cities that are adjacent to ancient cities that had a wall around them in the days of Yehoshua Bin Nun. I concluded, in regards to Beit Shemesh at least, that there is much merit in observing a second day of Purim, on the 15th of Adar.