In the days following November 8th, when Donald Trump unexpectedly secured enough electoral votes to become the 45th president of the United States, those of us in shock and sadness were frequently remonstrated with to get over it, and assured that we would: with the passage of time our pain would dull, and anyway, we […]

Download the pdf My qualifications for discussing this topic are experiential, rather than academic.  I have no particular expertise in tikkun olam or the relationship between Jews and the broader world (my academic training is in the history of science.)  But I have been teaching Modern Orthodox high school students for seven years, teaching American […]

Download the pdf “Caesar had his Brutus; Charles the First his Cromwell; and George the Third—” [Cries of “Treason! Treason!”] “George the Third may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it.” –Patrick Henry, speech to Virginia House of Burgesses, May 29, 1765 Among the many things that characterize modern […]

Our recent communal engagements around women and Orthodoxy have taken on something of the aspect of trench warfare.  On either side, partisans are deeply dug in to their respective positions, lobbing intense verbal volleys over no man’s land to detonate over the trenches on the other side, strewing shrapnel indiscriminately. Periodically, a frontal assault is […]

  Ki Im Hacharesh Tacharishi Ba’Et HaZot For If You Remain Silent At This Time The Book of Esther is perhaps the best-loved book of the Tanakh; the reading of its dramatic narrative the centerpiece of the holiday of Purim. The story pivots on a number of theatrical confrontations: the confrontation between Haman and Mordechai […]