Two weeks ago, I got an email from a man (let’s call him B) who explained that he is “ frei” (no longer observant) because he was molested by an “Orthodox Jew” and because his molestation (and other molestations he knew of) were covered up by other “Orthodox Jews.”  (The quotations serve as a way of my […]

A few months ago while on Facebook, I started looking at an old high school friend’s pictures. As is often the case on Facebook, pictures of someone I didn’t  know any more led me to pictures of someone I didn’t know at all.  (Obviously, I kept clicking!) And then I saw a picture of two […]

Over the course of Jewish history, groups of Jews have occasionally splintered off from mainstream Torah Judaism, in terms of theology and observance. For example, in the Second Temple period, there were the Sadducees and the Essenes. In the early middle ages there were the Karaites. And in modern times, Jews have broken off to form non-Orthodox […]

While logging into my email today, I was struck by the story of singer Christina Aguilera’s separation from her husband. A celebrity break up is not particularly newsworthy – if anything, it’s the Hollywood relationships that last that should be covered!