How the 2000 Los Angeles Jewish Federation Census Was Calculated to Undercount Torah-Observant Jews
The Jewish Federation's census of Los Angeles Jewry remains controversial. Even as the United States continues...Read More
Tarbut Goes Topless
The letter whose text is reprinted below this commentary has been sent by the Administration of the Tarbut v'Torah...Read More
On the Increased Urgency for a New Jewish Educational Vision to Guide the Pedagogic Model of Tarbut v’Torah (TVT)
When I was ordained in March 1981 with s'mikha from HaRav HaGaon Harav Yosef Ber Soloveitchik zt"l and Ra...Read More
Census And Non-Census
Jewish population statistics fascinate me. As with other kinds of surveys, they tell some truths, misrepresent...Read More
The Price of Freedom
To facilitate pidyon shvuyim (redeeming captive Jews from secular prisons) we are commanded to go so far as to...Read More
A Mindset that Drinking Is Not Cool, Vodka Vomiting Is Not Cool, Crookery Is Not Cool
When I attended yeshiva high school, everyone kvetchedabout the school: kids kvetched about the teachers, th...Read More
On Bernie who Madoff with the Loot — Fifty Billion
It was said of Lev Bronstein, a revolutionary in post-Czarist Russia, who -- to dissociate himself from his Jew...Read More
To be alone
It took my divorce to understand fully all of those sermons that I had preached over the years about caring for t...Read More
Orthonomics — Losing Our Best and Brightest
The issue of Orthonomics, like the weather, is much discussed but not much acted upon. Perhaps it is too compli...Read More
American Jews: On Bars and Mitzvahs
"If I had the power, I would annul the bar mitzvah ceremony as it is observed in our country because it is know...Read More
Bar & Bat Mitzvahs: Spending Ourselves into Oblivion
Bar Mitzvahs typically are foolishly extravagant to a degree that is Jewishly unjustifiable. Nothing about bein...Read More
A Mitzvah Resolution
We all have favorite mitzvot: slowing down the pace on Shabbat, building a sukkah, frolicking at Purim, studyin...Read More
Yeshiva Education Matters — More Than We Realize
In California, people (not necessarily Jewish) who home-school also have a network that connects them. So, for...Read More
Contrasting cultures
The single largest gathering in American history in honor of Torah study will take place at the New Jersey Mead...Read More
On the Obsolescence of “Orthodoxy” and the Timeliness of “Observance”
We in the Observant community – my preferred term – historically have reflected, to our shame, a reduced sens...Read More
Rosh Hashanah — The Next Thing on My List
With Rosh Hashanah on the horizon, we pause to take stock: What is a year? We do not get many of them in a l...Read More
Running Interference: Hank Greenberg as Mixed Metaphor
When a Torah-observant rabbinic figure participates in a Church service honoring a newly elected American Presi...Read More
Jews and American Conservatism
Last year, when voters in the Queens-Brooklyn Ninth Congressional District of New York elected Bob Turner, a so...Read More
Always the Jews — not: Give the maniac credit for what he is
The search for truth and understanding is not helped by searching endlessly for a Jewish angle in every cockamami...Read More
Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon, Billy Mays: Counting the Stars and Numbering the Days
Last week’s news was dominated by the deaths of three celebrities: Ed McMahon, who entered our homes as Johnn...Read More
When Professors Throw Rocks
Disagreements should be settled with words, not deadly weapons. That's a basic rule of civilized society, and it...Read More
Time to Pardon Jonathan Pollard
1. Pollard did a terrible, terrible thing. 2. A terrible thing. Just terrible. 3. Horrible. And he messed...Read More
Kol Nidre- 5764
Kol Nidre -- Yom Kippur Our theme for these Days of Awe – for this year’s High Holidays – is to Return...Read More
I am My Kid’s Dad, My Mom’s Kid, and My Torah’s Defender: Radio’ing for Help from Dr. Laura
The Laura Schlessinger stuff has been circulating enough that a brief comment is warranted. And because she is...Read More
On Obama, Democrats, Republicans, Israel, and the Futility of Knowing Who Are Friends
I did not vote for Obama, instead choosing to vote as the exit polls told us that most Jews in Orthodox circles...Read More