Articles

Questions of personal status are among the most sensitive issues in Judaism and thus require responsible rabbinic leadership.
That is one reason why there was such an outcry last year when Israel’s Chief Rabbinate refused to allow my teacher, Rabbi Avi Weiss, to vouch for the Jewishness of a couple marrying in Israel. While the Chief Rabbinate ultimately backed down and agreed to accept Rabbi Weiss’ word, there are still unanswered questions regarding this episode.

On Jan. 4, 2014, the Rabbinical Council of America — a leading Orthodox rabbinic association — issued this statement: “Recent assertions that the Rabbinical Council of America advised the Chief Rabbinate of Israel to reject the testimony of RCA member Rabbi Avi Weiss are categorically untrue.”

A few years ago, I spoke about domestic violence on Yom Kippur. Afterward, two very sweet members of my synagogue came up to me and said, "Rabbi, you shouldn't speak about such ugly things from the pulpit. That doesn't happen here."

I thought to myself, "Two rows behind you and a little to the left, it does."

Domestic violence happens in Jewish homes. This article is the reopening of the conversation, because we need to confront this issue. I wish we didn't have to. But this isn't only an issue in the Catholic Church. It is much closer to home than we'd like to admit.

Abuse happens within Jewish families. Physical and verbal abuse happen in Jewish families.

When I was in high school, a friend and I decided we needed to know whether God existed. It was a big public high school on Long Island, full of Catholics and Protestants who went to church and enough Jews to support a kosher bakery just around the corner from the football field. Everyone got along pretty well. But apart from bar mitzvahs, first communions, and the Civil Rights Movement—which galvanized much of the town’s clergy—daily life didn’t seem to have much to do with religion. God was mostly for holidays.

In Praise of Praising Together - A review essay in Praise of Nehalel (Jerusalem: Nevarech, 2013)
By Rabbi Alan Yuter

This engaging Siddur is the post-modern expression of a thoughtful, educated, worldly, urbane, and religiously sensitive modern Orthodox lay person. The Siddur’s magic lies in the originality of its concept, the personal voice that provides an Everyman’s perspective as expressed by one thinking and feeling individual, and the public sharing of one person’s personal response to prayer.

THE PROSELYTE WHO COMES[1]

by Rabbi Dr. Isaac Sassoon

(Rabbi Dr. Isaac Sassoon is a faculty member at the Metivta, the Institute of Traditional Judaism. Among his publications is his commentary on Torah, "Destination Torah.")

“We are gereem before Thee” (1Chr 29:15)

We thank all those who shared their ideas on how to make Orthodox synagogues more meaningful. We've chosen SEVEN winners. Their suggestions can help our synagogues and communities be stronger, more creative, more engaging. The winning essays are from Pam Ehrenkranz (Stamford, Connecticut); Yael Kassorla (Atlanta, Georgia); Dr. Alan Krinsky (Providence, Rhode Island); Rabbi Arnold Samlan (West Hempstead, New York); Barbara Mendes (Los Angeles, California); Leonard Stein (Beer Sheva, Israel); and Hinda Bramnick (Boca Raton, Florida).

The mid-nineteenth century was a heady era for Reform Judaism in America, with a strong influx of German Jewish immigrants for whom the modernity of Classical Reform resonated. By the middle of the twentieth century, the whole world seemed to be moving toward Conservative Judaism—certainly Orthodox Judaism was the odd man out, or so it appeared. The Jewish community fully embraced suburbanization, and whether in the city or in the suburb, new synagogues being built were almost entirely without mehitsot (partitions between men and women) and with large parking lots.

Storied Jewish Lives around the World, by Hillel Goldberg

Feldheim Publishers, 2013, 228 pages

Rabbi Hillel Goldberg, an award winning author who has published inspiring Jewish stories for over 45 years, and has authored five previous books, has now given us three dozen well-crafted, easy-to-read, inspiring tales of people who we will admire, people we should emulate.

“There is greatness,” Rabbi Goldberg writes, “not only in well known leaders. ‘There is no person who does not have his hour.’ I have known this person too – the ‘simple Jew,’ the poshuteh Yid – shining in his moment of distinction. I have tried to capture” the greatness of these Jews, and their contribution to those around them.