Last Saturday night, after three days of being off-line due to Rosh Hashana and Shabbos, I powered up my iPhone, and the emails started flooding in. Apparently during the holiday a story broke about a pre-Rosh Hashana El Al flight to Israel (LY4) which took off from JFK and was full of Hasidic men who refused to […]
As I write these words, our brothers in Israel have entered Gaza to weed out terrorists. This mission is occurring during the Three Weeks – a time of mourning over the destruction of our Temple which begins on the 17th of Tammuz and ends on Tisha B’Av. We are told that the Second Temple was […]
A couple weeks ago we started an initiative to address an issue we were hearing more and more about: ex-Haredi Jews who want to remain observant but who don’t feel welcome or know how to fit into the non-Haredi Orthodox Jewish world. One of our advisors – a person who is a lot more rational […]
There is a story told about the late rabbi and physicist Aryeh Kaplan: As a teenager he began to explore Orthodox Judaism and spent a short time in yeshiva. After his brief stint, he wasn’t so convinced that observant life was for him, so he decided to leave. But he was a bit nervous as […]
Hey Hollywood producers and directors: We Orthodox Jews are not just the punchlines to your jokes. Try meeting us and learning about our nuances.
The Wall Street Journal has been very interested in Passover themed stories of late. A couple weeks ago I was quoted in an article about “Passover bagels” where the author wanted to know if eating foods that mimic chametz (leavened) is cheating. (Check out my answer and notice who was more lenient on the subject: me, […]
