America's Rabbi / Shmuley Boteach

When in 1948 President Harry Truman recognized the new Jewish State of Israel, Einstein declared it 'the fulfillment of our dream.'

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)

When children die, God forbid, I want to hear Rabbis who demand that God be a protector of life rather than blaming tragedy on human sin.

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.

But the most painful part of an otherwise illuminating and extraordinary Forum was Iranian President Rouhani's speech.

In return for its withdrawal from Gaza, Israel got a major war.

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?

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.

We watched and watched, anticipating the kill.

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

There is nothing beneficial that comes from suffering that could have not been achieved far more effectively through a positive means.

Haim Saban, a proud Jew, staunch supporter of Israel, and noted philanthropist, nevertheless parses President Obama’s record on Israel in The New York Times to deliver a sanitized rendition of a President whose relationship with the Jewish state is unreliable at best and troubling at worst, writes Congressional candidate Rabbi Shmuley Boteach.

Rabbi Schochet wrote the Johannesburg Beis Din: It is totally prohibited and unacceptable to hear someone like Boteach.

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

I call on the President of the United States to employ his considerable mastery of words to take up the mantle of Martin Luther King and be a drum major for justice, a beacon for freedom. Sound the clarion call for liberty, Mr. President. Get off the damn fence and stand up for Arab life and liberty. Stop the slaughter in Syria.

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

City officials in Englewood are hampering the development of a synagogue, but were nowhere to be found in opposing Kaddafi and the Libyan Embassy in Englewood.

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

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

Those who use either chemical, or even conventional weapons to slaughter innocent people must be held accountable.

Penn managed to sneak Ostreicher across a hostile border and into a safe and currently undisclosed location in the United States.

Does the German government really want to get into a public battle over whether they are better guardians of the health and welfare of Jewish (and Muslim) children than their parents?

When my daughter first made aliyah she was a student at Hebrew University. After a year she called me and told me she was enlisting.

Several headlines recently caught my attention when I heard that a man who claims to have worked as Michael Jackson's bodyguard made the incredulous charge that Michael was a Nazi sympathizer. This kind of viciousness should usually not be indulged because it just gives it more credibility for the retelling. But the slander against Michael's name in this instance is so great that it deserves to be rebutted.

Eric Garcetti’s caring for those who are struggling would become his defining political legacy as a Los Angeles council member and as President of the Council.

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.

Is this what three thousand and three hundred years of Jewish tradition has come to, that a nation that has always dared to walk alone, with different ideals and values from the wider culture, should so fully capitulate to the most corrupt, misogynistic values, that we would advocate that our young women have plastic surgery in order to get married?

How can anyone calling himself a Rabbi have the chutzpah to ever justify the death of innocents?

Tied as we are in Martin Luther King's 'single garment of destiny' where 'whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly,' courageous soldiers of the US military are forced to engage in war so that the rest of us might live in peace, to stain their hands so that our future might be clear. We do not gloat over the death of evil since its very existence must be mourned.

What is it about Jacob that he seemingly can’t stop the favoritism?