The Jewish Week recently published a review, written by Steven Bayme, of a book by Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the UK. The review said that Rabbi Sacks disagrees with the late and great Rav Soloveitchik’s belief that it is a shared fate that unites Jews. Rabbi Sacks insists it is a shared faith. Rav Soloveitchik Z”L doesn’t need me…
General Topics
Ground Zero Mosque
Last week I wrote an op-ed piece for Ha’aretz on the mosque, or center, or both (depends who you ask) near Ground Zero in Manhattan. The theme of the article was that in free and open societies where all weird and strange religions are allowed to flourish and compete on the market, one cannot and indeed should not try to…
Love Betrayed
So you have fallen in love. You are in a relationship. You think you are happy. And then the other betrays you. There are lots of different ways of betraying. It does not just have to be the ultimate, the sexual, though that is the one the Bible focuses on. Modern society, with its greater emphasis on psychology and analyzing…
Love Hurts
Having anything, means that one risks losing it. That is true of possessions, of life, and of course of love. But because one risks losing something, surely that does not mean one should never try to achieve it. As Lord Tennyson said (yes, Lord Tennyson and not Shakespeare), “‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved…
Reform Meddling
I have so often attacked individuals in the Charedi world for the way they play the system. Now the boot’s on the American Reform foot over an attempt to try to resolve the issue of Russian Israelis who are not Jewish, and there are lots of them. A bill before the Knesset would have decentralized conversions in Israel to allow…
Anthony Julius
Anthony Julius has a reputation as one of the brightest English lawyers of his generation and has a PhD on T.S. Eliot. Recently he was praised for his role in the defense of Deborah Lipstadt against the revolting David Irving. Julius has spent many years studying anti-Semitism in all its varieties. He concludes it has felt like swimming through a…