I may have to eat my words. Anglo Jewry is alive and well! Not only, but there is a new era of younger, proactive professionals who know how to run organizations efficiently, how to deal with governments and civil servants, and handle the press and the new media. And, for the first time, they are supported by new generation of…
General Topics
The Ten Commandments
If one had to suggest one indisputable contribution that Jews have made to humanity it might be the Bible. The trouble with that assertion is that there are sections of the Bible that are taken by some rather negatively, whether they are laws to do with slavery or even sacrifices or historical commandments like obliterating Canaanites. But I think even…
Actions Count
It is easy to beat up on any kind of human activity, as indeed I often do. Humans often mess up, intentionally or otherwise, almost anything they get their hands on or invent. It is true that there are also those, if fewer, who seem able to elevate things, but it is easy to focus on the negative. Newspapers will…
A Different Hasid
All revolutionary movements lose their original inspiration. Power and pragmatism dull the fire. So it is with religion, and so it is with Hasidism. I identify with the Hasidic movement, in principle, and admire its passion and desire to elevate every individual and to inspire through joy. But nothing, no one, is above constructive criticism. My brother, Mickey Rosen, has…
Spinka
It was a sad day for Orthodox Judaism when the New York Times ran this story: December 20, 2007. The grand rabbi of Spinka, a Brooklyn-based Hasidic sect, was arrested Wednesday with his executive assistant in Los Angeles on charges that they arranged and profited from inflated charitable donations that saved the donors millions of dollars in federal income taxes.…
Happy Holidays
I have changed my mind about Xmas. A few years ago I wrote a piece excoriating those Jews who celebrated it, because it was a Christian festival whose undertones were anti-Semitic. I fancied an exaggerated scenario. In a winter pine tree-clad Bavarian hilltop village, a sweet Aryan couple has been cast out onto the streets by dark-skinned, hook-nosed Jews, who…