American Jewry and Continuity

A 2007 study by sociologists Steven Cohen and Ari Kelman found that more than half of non-Orthodox Jews under 35 would not view the destruction of the State of Israel as a personal tragedy.

Orthodox Jews likely outnumber devout Muslims at Harvard. Yet I doubt it ever occurred to Orthodox Jewish students to request separate hours for use of the swimming pool or gym.

Obama's problem is not race. It is that he consorts too easily with those whose hatred of America is deep and visceral and attracts them to his banner like moths to the light.

The claim of absolute physician discretion to withdraw life-support would spell the end of any patient autonony over end-of-life decisions.

Ensuring that all our talmidim receive the guidance thay need must be one of our top priorities.

The passion for drawing other Jews close to Torah is most frequently found in ba'alei teshuva, who have experienced both life without the guidance of Torah and a life with Torah and know the chasm between the two.

What difference would it make if Walt-Mearsheimer were anti-Semites?

The degree of personal involvement in every aspect of their congregants' lives required of these rabbis is quite unlike anything experienced by those in more traditional shuls.

If my sons caught a glimmer of the obstacles that the Jews they met in shul have had to overcome to get to where they are today, I will account that aspect of our trip to have been a major success as well.

But that process of Jews discovering the power of Torah to speak to their deepest concerns as parents, spouses, and human beings is not helped by one of the leading lights of Modern Orthodoxy proclaiming contemporary Orthodoxy to be something dark and cul

A society which still recognizes a collective identity larger than the individual is still one step closer to finding its way back to Hashem.

For progressive Jews, totally convinced of their own absolute righteousness and Israel's absolute evil, any effort at refutation of their hyperbolic charges, can only be seen as part of a conspiratorial effort to silence speakers of the truth.

Turning Down the Noise

Failure to close the gap in marriage age, will result in hundreds of young women per year going unmarried, and the number of unmarried women between 25 and 45 reaching the many thousands within the next few decades in the United States alone.

Far from the “notion of educated, sophisticated, and even affluent Jews embracing an Orthodox lifestyle with all it entails [being something] profoundly disturbing,” writes Tobin, the community should view it as a “positive development.”

Before Bielski and other Israeli leaders lecture Diaspora Jews on their lack of a Jewish future, they would be well advised to attend to our own house, where the lack of Jewish identity threatens our very existence.

Deep ambivalence toward Israel has infected the Democratic Party.

There is no need to fly across the ocean to find gadlus.

That is most obvious in the case of the proposals for secular conversion, which are nothing more than an attempt to equate being Israeli with being Jewish.

One suspects, however, that the deepest identification the authors of the letter feel is a negative one – fear that they will be identified with Israel on their university campuses. And that is an ominous sign indeed.

Cohen and Wertheimer lament that a people that has lost pride in itself will no longer be able to move the world with its message. The real tragedy is that most Jews do not even know that Judaism has a message or that they are its bearers.

That ability to weigh all the various factors is the indispensable quality required whenever the Torah community must choose between two possible courses of action.

However weak as an analytical tool, the “Israel Lobby” is a potent rhetorical device.

Those who point out their innumerable errors of fact and interpretation of Walt and Mearshimer's paper face a problem: The harder they punch, the more they “prove” that there is an Israel Lobby. Yet the paper cannot be ignored.

Behind every great achievement in Klal Yisrael, one can count on finding a man or woman with a vision who wore down the doubters with his or her enthusiasm.

Such visits can be used to force us to wrestle with a world of hester panim, and out of that wrestling hopefully emerge with a deeper and truer faith in He Who has preserved us in the face of all the Amaleks, Hamans, and Hitlers.

The self-destruction of Shinui signals a widespread recognition that Israel cannot afford to destroy its sources of self-identity and strength.

But I did begin to see the advantages of being a member of a tiny minority - always a useful thing for a Jew.

The Real Crisis

Even as we mourn the passing of askanim of Rabbi Neuberger and Rabbi Sherer's international stature, it behooves us to consider how we can ensure that others emerge to replace them.

Should American Jewry continue on its present rush to oblivion, at least its leaders will not be able to say that Jack Wertheimer did not tell them so and point a different direction.

The only result of a more "welcoming" attitude towards converts will be to put off confronting directly the real issue – the loss of Jewish meaning for the vast majority of those born Jewish.

The ba'alei mussar tell us that any regimen of spiritual improvement requires small, incremental steps. In the gym, one quickly sees how great a distance can be traversed in a short time through small, but constant improvements.

Gradually the recognition is dawning that the Talmud is the key to Jewish survival and transmission.

Should religious practices be more subject than entertainment or vanity to governmental or societal coercion? Does that really square with our nation's commitment to religious freedom?

This failure to think communally is hardly limited to American Orthodoxy. It affects those of us living in Israel as well.

The frenetical political activity up to and including election day was the culmination of a three-year-old vision of one man: Jeff (Yehoshua) Ballabon, an Orthodox Jew from West Hempstead New York.

But we do know that without a return to Hashem there is no future for American Jewry.

The secularism of the intellectuals (and so many Jews) is itself a quasi-religion – only devoid of any restrictions on personal behavior – that distorts reality every bit as much as anything believed by President Bush.

Thousands of American Jews have now had a chance to view a true Torah giant in person. None of them will ever be quite the same again.

John Kerry claims that there will be no difference between him and President Bush in terms of policy towards Israel. Don’t believe it.

The October 13 JTA carried three items that reveal a great deal about the state of American Jewry.

There are too many threats today that require an active American involvement in the Middle East for America to enter an isolationist mode.

What do Shinui and a large swath of American Jewry have in common? Answer: An obsessive fear of anything connected to religion, and contempt for people of faith.

Solving the dual loyalty conundrum

Get out and vote

Had Jewish groups been less eager to take the lead in criticizing the film, they would have found many eager Christian allies.

A battle lost before it begins

Attacks on Israel are causing Jewish students to flee even further from any identification as Jews.

The secret of a successful Bar Mitzvah

Reach out and help someone

Jonathan Pollard’s dwindling band of intense supporters must ask themselves: Would we rather have him free or hailed as a hero? Let’s hope they choose freedom.

Can Anything be Done about Intermarriage?

Every year thousands of chains of Jews extending backwards in time over three millennia are cut off permanently.

The passion for drawing other Jews close to Torah is most frequently found among ba'alei teshuva, who have experienced both life without the guidance of Torah and a life with Torah and know the chasm between the two.

Unless we can honestly answer why it is so important that there remain a Jewish nation, we will almost certainly disappear through intermarriage

As individuals and as a community, American Jews have no answer to the question: Why does it make the slightest difference whether the Jewish people continue to exist? Without an answer to that question, the future of American Jewry is bleak

Carl McCall represents the kind of black politican that Jews should eagerly support

American Jews have traditionally supported the Democratic party. Maybe it's time to rethink that alliance.

An analysis of the reasons for conservative support for Israel, and why that support is far more important than American Jewish support.

Operation Defensive Shield is Israel's war, not Ariel Sharon's, despite what the NY Times says. The NY Times does not want American Jewry to understand why Israel had no choice.

Almost all the links that used to bond the Jewish people have been severed

The myth of Jewish brainpower exploded by Oslo and a recent survey of American Jewry on the war on terror

Eric Yoffie's stance against school vouchers is a prescription for the end of Jewish identity in the US

Why Orthodox Jews are not fundamentalists

the importance of morale and Reform's boycotting of Israel

American Jewry cannot depend on its leaders to maintain a distinctive Jewish identity

Wolpe's remarks make it clear that the Conservative movement is totally incapable of inspiring its constituents

Double Failure

Jewish students on college campuses do all they can to disassociate themselves from Israel and as a result, from Judasim too

Get Me To The Church On Time

American Jews have chosen to dismiss the problem of intermarriage by no longer seeing it as a problem

The Americans seem almost indifferent to the outcome of their presidential election

Lessons for everyday life from the presidential election

Pollard's sentencing is a stain on the American Judicial System

The organized American Jewish community is wary of public displays of religion

The ADL vs. Joseph Lieberman

Lieberman's nomination proves that religion has been fully accepted in America

Birthright Israel--what they're doing wrong

Vive La Difference

Bush's "G-d talk" may make some Jews nervous, but a Christian America is actually safer for the Jews

Birthright Israel--what they're doing right

Birthright Israel--what they're doing wrong

Why highly educated young secular Jews become religious

A portrait of Dr. Joseph Kaminetsky

On the Jonathan Pollard case

An ethnic bond is not sufficient to hold the Jewish nation together

The truly 'enlightened' Jews do not respect or desire to hear the arguments of the other side

How intermarriage endangers Judaism's continuity

American Jewry clings to the ideal of anti-Semitism as a means to preserve the image of a "good Jew"

By infinitely expanding the borders of acceptable Judaism, we effectively trivialize it

The simple facts behind the Yale Five case