America's Rabbi / Shmuley Boteach

If you’re feeling down, stop reading right now. You’re only going to be more depressed.

Democracy without a legitimate constitution and a Bill of rights, especially protecting the rights of minorities, can become a very scary thing. What you get is a tyranny of the majority. So the United States, as the world’s foremost democracy and sole superpower, must insist that elected regimes be restrained by a constitution that safeguards against a gravitation toward tyranny.

Americans are sick and tired of rancorous, scorched-earth politics, which has given Congress a nine percent approval rating. Let’s show America that politics is an honorable profession, a noble calling, filled with people who put values, country, and integrity first. Let’s start winning people back to the political theater by demonstrating that politics are inspiring rather than depressing, ennobling rather than corrupting, and harmonious rather than rancorous.

There are thousands of unqualified soferim in both America and Israel who sell items that, far from being first-rate, are not even kosher.

I am mystified as why you broke with close to 90% of Congress, voting to condemn Israel for imposing a blockade on Gaza. Surely you do not want to see Israeli children with their limbs blown off. Surely you do not want to see Hamas possessing the instruments to execute suspected Palestinian “collaborators” without trial. But without Israel stopping war materials from entering Gaza, more innocent Israelis and Palestinians will be murdered in the most gruesome way.

The shocking video of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa trying to push through Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in the Democratic platform highlights the strong reservations that many American Jews are feeling toward the Democratic party.

The gradual trickle of self-hatred into the Jewish soul is evidencing itself in the American Jewish public.

The growing revelations that the Obama State Department watered down public statements on the attack in order to cleanse them of any mention of al Qaeda and terrorism is a travesty.

It’s rather a sign of how badly Israel is losing on campus.

Just yesterday I was fully engaged in my campaign for the United States Congress. Winning, elections, and victory were on my mind. Boy, what a difference a day can make. Today, I just want my family and the 50 million people in the storm’s path to be safe.

We can afford a few cruise missiles fired at Bashar Assad’s air force and presidential palaces.

Few people I have met have been more committed to social unity and bringing people together than Cory Booker. Which other African-American Christian Rhodes scholar would have agreed to become President of an orthodox Jewish student organization that was run by a Hassidic Rabbi?

GoDaddy's Super Bowl spot was a disappointment for American culture and even more disappointing that it starred an Israeli icon.

Last week I was quoted as saying that President Obama is a strong friend of the Jewish people and that anyone who calls him anti-Semitic is guilty of character assassination. I stand by that quote. But being a great friend of the Jewish people does not automatically make one a great friend of Israel.

Being forced to pay taxes does not make us more virtuous people. If it did, our founding fathers would have thanked George III for his coercion.

Forgetting how to hate can be just as damaging as forgetting how to love.

Challenging God in the face of suffering is not blasphemous.

I came to know Mr. Shamir quite well when I hosted him at the University of Oxford in the mid-90’s. He seemed all but forgotten even then and told me that his dramatic drop in popularity in Israel had been due to the euphoria over the premiership of Yitzchak Rabin and his dramatic overtures for peace. He told me this with a touch of resignation. It seemed he did feel underappreciated. More importantly, he seemed to divine the coming catastrophe.

Rice was part of Bill Clinton’s National Security Team whom in 1994 refused any intervention whatsoever in the Rwanda genocide that left 800,000 dead.

What business does the government have entering a church, synagogue, or mosque to legitimize or define the spiritual nature of a person's marriage? We are supposed to have separation of church and state in America. Far from harming religion, this change would encourage non-religious people to entertain the concept of how religion can enhance and enrich one’s life, and be an invitation to engage in further religious learning, traditions, communities, and beliefs.

Let us also not forget that Adelson criticized many of the social values of the Republican Party before it became fashionable to do so.

It was when Congressman Steve Rothman defended the rights of Former Libyan dictator Muammar Kaddafi’s personal envoy to live peacefully and tax-free next to me that I first thought of running against him. What was Rothman's purpose in defending the right of an envoy of a terror-sponsoring government to live in our midst?

Twenty years, countless conversations, and hundreds of Friday night Shabbat dinners later, Cory today is a much-loved honorary member of the American Jewish community, regularly lecturing at Synagogues and Jewish conferences across the country. More significant, Cory has challenged the Jewish community to live up to its Biblical calling to serve as ‘a light unto the nations.’ In many of the speeches we deliver together he asks the Jewish participants if they study the weekly Parsha, if they honor the commandments, and cherish the Sabbath. What allows an African-American Christian Mayor to challenge Jewish leaders to deepen their Jewish commitment? Because those same leaders are amazed at Cory’s knowledge of Judaism and appreciation of the Jewish contribution to civilization. (Watch video)

The greatest tragedy made manifest in Steubenville is the attitude of teenage men toward girls.

Why would the Senator insist on the Biblical teachings regarding homosexuality but not those of protecting Israel?

Mehmet, perhaps the world’s most famous Muslim who is not a head of state, is a righteous and proud Ambassador of his faith and feels an innate kinship and brotherhood with the Jewish people.

In the Hebrew Bible everyone is flawed and everyone makes mistakes.

So long as we obsess over abortion, gay marriage, and contraception to the exclusion of any other values, we cannot fix our problems.

Public relations is nearly the whole ball game and we Jews have lost the battle not just in modern times with Israel but throughout a long and tragic history

In the time that I spent with Professor Benzion Netanyahu, I discerned a Jewish nationalist of phenomenal determination. Zionism was in his DNA and I have rarely met a more passionate Jewish patriot or a prouder Jew. He had a sweeping view of history and could clearly argue the precarious state of the Jewish people throughout time.