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What Orthodoxy?

Modern, Centrist, Enlightened Orthodoxy (no one knows quite what to call it) is dead. The alarm bells are ringing all around the Jewish world as a result of the recent decision of the rabbinical courts in Israel to question thousands of conversions, both in Israel and the Diaspora, performed by rabbis considered too modern/unreliable/suspect/not kosher enough/not subservient enough, even if…

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Israel at 60

Everyone else is giving an opinion on Israel’s sixtieth. Even notional Jews who have had absolutely no positive involvement in Jewish life whatsoever have suddenly come out to relieve themselves of their own antipathies by excoriating Israel. Hope it makes them feel better. Here’s my contribution. If having a state was, as some Zionists ideologues dreamed, going to normalize Jews,…

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Support the Ahmadiyya

It is a sad sign of the times that in all religions, fundamentalist pressure is exercising an intolerant influence that is spreading rather than receding. Some may argue that the times require it, that the perniciousness of libertarianism is the modern paganism and only strictness and protected environments can counteract the destructiveness of Western societies, but the negative impact this…

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Cry for Zimbabwe

Pesach, when we think about freedom, has coincided this year with further atrocities from a latter day tyrant, the nasty, evil little man, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. In 1966 I was a student in Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem when I was dispatched on a mission to Bulawayo, in what was then Southern Rhodesia, to stand in as a temporary rabbi…

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Freedom from what?

Pesach is such a magnificent archetypal Jewish celebration. It is true that it is based on a sad story of persecution, murder and suffering, but the way we celebrate it is anything but sad. The litany of the agonies of slavery which the Haggadah repeats is all but lost under the magic aura of lots of wine, strange customs, exotic…

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Shlomo Carlebach

As we approach Pesach I know I am going to sing tunes I learnt from Shlomo Carlebach, the “singing rabbi”, the Jewish version of Bob Dylan, the Jewish voice of the hippy, love generation. He had an amazing talent for the simple, catchy tune and he has had a bigger influence on Jewish liturgical music, across the denominations, than anyone…

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