Tag: issue

There's a popular adage that tells us not to sweat the small stuff. I always thought that it meant we should not make an issue out of insignificant incidents that impinge on our kavod. When we are victims, we should categorize all this as "small stuff" and the best way to deal with it is to forgive, forget and move on.

Problems Faced Due to Compromised Tznius

New Book Reveals His Private Thoughts On Chabad, Zionism, Women's Hair Covering

Techeles, the blue strings the Torah requires Jews to wear on their ritual tzitzis garments, has long been thought of as a "dead" mitzvah. Sometime in the 7th century apparently (possibly due to the Arab conquest of Israel) Jews stopped producing techeles strings and the identity of the chilazon, from which the blue dye originates, was subsequently lost.

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Mayor Bloomberg has enjoyed the sort of adulatory media coverage that would make even Barack Obama envious. Well, maybe not Obama, but certainly any merely mortal politician. Which makes Fred Siegel’s stubborn refusal to join Bloomberg’s Hallelujah chorus all the more startling.

The first column I ever wrote was published in the May 1996 issue of The Jewish Observer. My topic, underachieving children and the increased rate of dropouts of boys and girls from our community, was not discussed in polite company at that time.

It is difficult to describe the sickening, gut-wrenching sensation I experience when I get phone calls from parents whose children were sexually abused or from adults who have carried the horrible scars of childhood abuse for decades, often shredding their relationships and ruining their lives.

DENVER - A year ago, the push for a congressional amendment that urged the declaration of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terrorist group was signature legislation for much of the pro-Israel lobby. Only two dozen U.S. senators out of 100 opposed it.

Last week I shared a letter from a gentleman who felt it was appropriate to comment on people's weight.

Dear Ms. Novick: There once was a time when I sincerely believed that I was open-minded regarding people who are overweight.

The Monitor requests some forbearance from readers; with preparations in high gear for an extended 10th anniversary column which, barring catastrophe, will appear as the front-page essay in the July 4 issue, this week’s offering is a reprint of a piece that garnered significant reader feedback when it first appeared several years ago.

One of the techniques I have found most helpful when mediating disputes between rebellious adolescents and their parents is to give the teenager six or eight index cards, and ask him or her to jot down a request or concession that he or she would like his parents to grant.

President Bush, writes Graydon Carter, paranoiac editor of Vanity Fair, the magazine that strives mightily to be taken seriously while championing celebrity narcissism and mindless titillation (“Nicole Kidman Bares All,” trills the cover of the current issue, thick as always with ads for perfume, lingerie and high-priced clothes and toys for high-income yuppies and those who aspire to be), “has taken away our civil liberties.”

Imagine going for a walk one winter morning and finding your neighbor sitting in his car vigorously turning the steering wheel while the engine is shut off. When you ask him why he doesn't start the car, he responds that his battery died, and he will soon get jumper cables to give it a boost. However, before he does that, he would like to turn the front wheels away from the curb so that he can instantly be able to pull out of the parking space once his automobile starts.

Forgive the Monitor a little self-indulgence this week. In its May 14 issue, Newsweek magazine published a chapter from historian Michael Beschloss’s new book, Presidential Courage (Simon & Schuster). The excerpt centered on Harry Truman’s role in the establishment of Israel, and Beschloss had no compunction about highlighting Truman’s nasty anti-Semitic streak or that after leaving office Truman admitted to the late television impresario David Susskind that his wife, Bess, had never allowed a Jew into their Independence, Missouri home.

        JERUSALEM - Israeli restaurant owners are well accustomed to the question "Do you have a teuda?" referring to the official certificate deeming all...

For the past two years, any time we've met our neighbors on our front lawn, near the street's curb, the discussion has invariably turned to the very pressing issue of... garbage.

Note to Readers: A letter appeared in last week's issue purporting to be from a "Rabbi Rick Probstein." We have since learned that the...

Question: Jonathan Pollard is serving his 22nd year in prison for espionage. Do you think his actions warranted a life sentence?

Title: Dalet AmotAuthor: Rabbi Ari Enkin         A breezy refresher course in some basics about Judaism, Dalet Amot is a necessary addition to bookshelves in...

If you do not like the system, then do not perpetuate it!

The issue of restitution for private property owned by Jews in Poland has long been a sore spot for many Jews of Polish origin.

I am still getting calls and e-mails from mothers and grandmothers with girls for "Avi" (a non-New Yorker), the ben Torah "earner" who was having trouble finding girls in his community willing to go out with him because he was not learning full time.

Applauds EditorialI heartily applaud your April 7 editorial - "Warm and Fuzzy 'Halacha'" - that called attention to the growing phenomenon of Jews, including...

Several years ago my husband and I were the directors of a seminary, which girls from all over the world attended.

Rabbi Porush's CourageReader Joseph Weidenfeld is highly unfair, and way off base, for insulting Rabbi Menachem Porush (Letters, April 29). Weidenfeld claims Rabbi Porush...

Some are dumbfounded that Ariel Sharon and the Likud are bringing Labor into the government to form a national unity coalition. Some cannot believe their eyes and ears and noses.

Mail We Like (I)I'm undoubtedly biased, since Harry Danning was my uncle, but I couldn't agree more with you regarding the pathetic obituary The...

Misguided EndorsementYour endorsement of George W. Bush for a second term is misguided.Have you forgotten that from the beginning of 2001, the administration has...