Tag: Rabbi Dr

What does it take to experience a miracle? Nothing more than to live a life with eyes wide open. The truth is, we live in an age of miracles and wonder. Does that sound like a ridiculous statement to you - to characterize the age of the Internet, gene therapy, and biological science as an age of miracles? For many people, the idea of "miracles" comes straight from Medieval times. They view miracles as fantasy and "anti-science."

There are those who view an authentic Jewish life as confining and repressive - pessimistic even. So many restrictions. Countless obligations. So much "observance" rather than "celebration." Yom Kippur fasts. Tzom Gedaliah. Tisha B'Av. The Seventeenth of Tammuz. So much sadness. So much pain. And then there is the emphasis on the in-depth study of mussar - ethics - emblematic of the Jewish need to continually rise to higher moral and spiritual levels.

While Shylock, in Shakespeare's play, might have used the plural as a rhetorical device, his words speak to a greater truth about community and nation. When we look at a country and wonder why it behaves in the way it does - with charity, belligerence, etc. - we are seeing an entity functioning as an individual might, often driven by the same emotions, ethics and sense of justice.

A few months before my family emigrated in 1938 to the United States from Hamburg, Germany, I had the special privilege at the bris of my brother, Micha, to sit on the lap of Chief Rabbi Joseph Carlebach, zt"l, a revered rabbinical giant of his age.

To commemorate the shloshim of Touro College founder and president, Dr. Bernard Lander, z"l, some of his friends and colleagues shared their memories of him with The Jewish Press. Here are their thoughts:

He founded a college that spans the world, and served as its president until his death Monday evening at his home in Forest Hills, New York.

He founded a college that spans the world, and served as its president until his death Monday evening at his home in Forest Hills, New York.

New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr., in conjunction with the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) of NY and the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, recently convened his annual celebration of Jewish Heritage at New York's City Hall.

Despite his remarkable qualifications, it became clear to Dr. Schaffer that he would not be able to obtain a rabbinical position in either Germany or Russia.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a number of rabbis did their utmost to establish and maintain Orthodox Judaism in America.

Correct Distinctions    Kenneth Levin's April 20 front-page essay ("The Empty Rage of Jewish 'Progressives'") makes precisely the correct distinctions between Alvin Rosenfeld's monograph and...

Rabbi Pinchas M. Teitz, who eventually became rav of Elizabeth, New Jersey, visited America from 1933-1935.

Authority, as the Gemara in Sanhedrin says, makes the world go round.