Let’s Call Them Modern Chasidim
Yesterday, in an article in Newsday, the world was introduced to the term Tuna Beigel. Now it’s time to retire it. A little Googling will yield plenty of results for the term and almost all of them are...
View ArticleWhen a Heretic Speak Heresy Against Heretics
Thomas Nagel, a well known philosopher, recently published a controversial book called Mind and Cosmos. I have not read the book. But I have read a lot about the firestorm it has generated. Nagel is an...
View ArticlePrivacy and Government Snooping in Jewish Law
I don’t think it matters much what Jewish law would say about the government snooping on its citizens. The government is not subject to Jewish law and its citizens don’t expect the government to...
View ArticleWe Are Going in the Wrong Direction
The war over MK Rabbi Dov Lipman is rising to a crescendo. The mouthpiece of the Ultra-Orthodox American establishment is the Yated Ne’eman. The Yated and its Matzav.com website are leading the charge...
View ArticleTorah M’Sinai According to Professor Tamar Ross
Professor Tamar Ross was interviewed by Professor Alan Brill over at Kavvanah about Torah M’Sinai and Biblical Criticism. To be honest, when I read the interview I was unable to comprehend what she was...
View ArticleThe False Flag of False Accusations in Sex Abuse Cases
One of the primary concerns in the orthodox Jewish community when discussing the issue of reporting sex abuse to the authorities is that inevitably there will be false accusations that will ruin the...
View ArticleModesty Messages from a Mormon
In many ways Mormons are like American Orthodox Jews. We share many values and our lifestyles are very similar. One thing that we share is the emphasis on modesty. The rules of modesty in Mormonism are...
View ArticleOn the Shoulders of (Imperfect) Giants
Conor Friedersdorf has an excellent article on theatlantic.com called “History Is Beautiful Things Made by People With Ugly Ideas“. He argues that a graduate student who refuses to sing a song written...
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Monsey Kosher Market ‘Integration’ Great Idea, Terrible Execution (Video)
On Friday in downtown Monsey a newly formed group of activists called Wake Up Rockland entered Rockland Kosher Supermarket–basically it’s the Pomegranate of Monsey. The group was led by a black...
View ArticleThe Challenge of Modesty
The Challenge: Write an article about modesty that is respectful to men and women, makes a case for an orthodox Jewish version of tznius, and it also has to make tznius sound pleasant. Can I do it?...
View ArticleSatmar Matzah as New York Times Front Page News
The NY Times must be learning Daf Yomi. Just when we all started learning about the laws of chametz and matzah, the Times runs a front page above the fold story on Satmar A (as opposed to Satmar Z)...
View ArticleRuminations on Meditation
Meditation was once an oddity reserved for spiritual extremists. Today, meditation is as American as apple pie. There are many good reasons to do meditation. The NY Times enumerates several of the...
View ArticleMy Appearance with Rabbi Shafran on ‘Talkline with Zev Brenner’
I was invited to join Rabbi Abraham (Avi) Shafran to talk about recent comments by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks and the subsequent response by the Agudah. We discussed it on Facebook on Friday and I guess Zev...
View ArticleDon’t Believe Everything They Say About Us
“And the LORD heard the voice of your words, and was angered, and swore, saying: Surely there shall not one of these men, even this evil generation, see the good land, which I swore to give unto your...
View ArticleMeeting the Challenge of Tisha B’Av: a Proposal
The biggest challenge we have on Tisha B’Av is relating to its sadness. Our Judaism is so upbeat and so positive that it can be hard to find the inner strength to be sad on this day. We are more...
View ArticleModern Racism
In the old days, when it was still cool to be a racist, people felt superior to other people because of the color of their skin. A white person was automatically better, smarter, more worthy than a...
View ArticleCan You Cry ‘Heresy’ in a Crowded Beit Midrash?
The most important discussion in orthodox Judaism right now is the pair of articles written by R’ Zev Farber. The articles have been deemed heresy by R’ Gordimer on Cross-Currents. If you are averse to...
View ArticleThe People Are Looking for Answers
The NY Times reports that there is a religious group that is losing even some of its most committed members because of what they are finding on the Internet. Sound familiar? The group is not orthodox...
View ArticleNew Republic Article on Feminism from Zion Is All About the Stakes
The new issue of The New Republic cover story (The Feminists of Zion An unlikely alliance between Orthodox and progressive women will save Israel from fundamentalism) is about us. It is about Haredim,...
View ArticleHaredi Censorship of Torah
The best database of seforim (books written about Torah topics are called seforim even though the word just means books, it has connotations of holiness and importance) is Otzar HaHochma. The Otzar has...
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