Category: Judaism

If you visit any religious neighborhood throughout the world during this time of year you will find that a certain level of seriousness has descended upon the residents. This is because we are in the month of Elul which is the four week period prior to the Rosh Hashanah the…

There is tremendous concern about the future of Judaism around the world. About one hundred and fifty years ago as the emancipation of the Jews occurred in Europe and beyond Jewish leaders grappled with how to keep Judaism alive and relevant. Some leaders decided to reform Judaism and make it…

This is the time of year when we are supposed to introspect as individuals. No doubt, however, it would be a good time to examine ourselves as a nation as well. There are many problems facing us as Jews. Anti-Semitism is on the rise all over the world. Iran is…

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in Germany this week. While there, he visited Wannsee Villa in Berlin the place that the “Final Solution” for the destruction of Europe’s Jews was planned in 1942 by Adolf Hitler and leaders of the Third Reich. In the visitors book Netanyahu wrote three…

The fact that Jews are disproportionally successful in many fields of endeavor is undeniable. The statistics simply speak for themselves. Jews make up less than half of one percent of the world’s population but they consistently have made up more than twenty percent of the Forbes 400 list of the…

Cory Booker, the Mayor of Newark, New Jersey, recently spoke to a Jewish audience. He started his talk with what he called a Dvar Torah, or a thought from that weeks’ Torah portion. He prefaced his comments by saying, “Before I go into this week’s Torah portion I want to…

The Conservative Movement’s flagship Rabbinic School, the Jewish Theological Seminary, welcomes a new chancellor this week. Arnold Eisen takes over from Ismar Schorsch, who at his final commencement speech talked about the "malaise of Conservative Judaism," its "impoverishment," and its "grievous failure of nerve."   In the Forward this week…

The Taryag Mitzvah Project promises to revolutionize the way Judaism is studied If there were a definitive book on Judaism, which one would it be? The Talmud? Maybe the Zohar or Maimonides’ code of Jewish law? Possibly a combination of the above? There is a problem though: none of these…

Jews must be constantly on guard to oppose anti-Semitism wherever is rears its ugly head, even in places where we least expect to see it In an attempt to explain why most Jewish Americans are liberal and vote Democrat, a friend of mine sent me Philip Roth’s award-winning book entitled…

A Synagogue in Glasgow was daubed Whilst most people in Britain are not prejudiced towards Jews, anti-Semitism is not taken seriously It is not surprising to me that just this week London’s Mayor Ken Livingstone won his High Court appeal against a finding that he brought his office into disrepute…