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Category Archives: Current Events
A Modest Proposal About “The List”
I have blogged before about the annual list of America’s Fifty Top Rabbis. I have joked in the past that this is the list that is stupid and pointless until you are on it (or your rabbi/institutional leader is on … Continue reading
Posted in Current Events, Jewish world
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On Bounties and the Saints
As regular readers of this blog (thanks, Michael!) know, I swore off football for last year. On the heels of my hiatus came the news that the New Orleans Saints had been very bad boys and girls (okay, mostly boys) … Continue reading
Facebook Swarming is Great, But We Have To Do better on Agunah
Of all the ethically problematic issues raised by tradition Jewish practice, none is so vexing as that of the aguna, or chained wife. Briefly, the traditional Jewish marriage can only be disovled with a document of divorce, called a get, … Continue reading
Posted in Current Events, Jewish world
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Year of Living Dangerously (And the Bible)
This story was sent to me by an alert reader (thanks, Dad!) about my home state of Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania House of Representatives, apparently with nothing much else to do, passed the following resolution (unanimously!) last week: RESOLVED, That the … Continue reading
Yes, But Is It Kosher?
The Forward has a disturbing article about the way some kosher certifying agencies are using the proceeds of their supervision: Badatz Yerushalayim is one of the most respected kosher supervisions in the world. Unlike other hekhshers, the presence of its … Continue reading
Heschel, King and Moral Grandeur
Normally, I don’t post my weekly e-mail messages on the blog, but I figured, this week, given the occasion, I would do so. If you want to receive our weekly e-mail, by the way, just send the office an e-mail … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Judaism, Current Events, Holidays
Tagged civil rights, heschel, king, social action
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The Problem of Prisoner Swaps
Despite the near-euphoria in Israel and the wider Jewish world when Gilad Shalit returned to his family, there was, alongside the joy, a clear sense that the price for his safe return had been quite high. The danger, of course, … Continue reading
Posted in Current Events, Israel
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The Israeli Bus Situation is Not Like Rosa Parks
A few weeks ago, a woman names Tayna Rosenblit did something quite brave, even though it really should not have been: she sat wherever she wanted on a public bus in Israel. Of course, that is her right, but for … Continue reading
Stuff You Probably Wish You Could Say Differently
I don’t have a tremendous amount to say about this exchange bewteen Congressman Eric Cantor and Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutes, other than that I think Representative Cantor would probably like a do-over on the “bane of my existence” comment at … Continue reading
Posted in Current Events
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Tim Tebow and the Cult of Individual Performance
One must be careful when talking about Tim Tebow. Just recently, a rabbi got in trouble for his column in The Jewish Week blasting Tebow’s overt religiosity. (The column has since been removed from the web, but an article about … Continue reading
Posted in Current Events, Rabbi Thoughts
Tagged american culture, community, football, sports, tebow
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The Ludus
If you have not yet read the three part New York Times series on the life and death of hockey enforcer Derek Boogaard, you really should. (Part I, II, III) At times, the story is almost unreadable, especially in the descriptions of the … Continue reading
Posted in Current Events, Drop Everything And...
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Don’t Show Me the Money
This past high holidays, one of my sermons dealt with the issue of humanness, and the ways in which we divide between ourselves as humans and “animals.” I talked about a fantastic book by Elizabeth Hess called Nim Chimpsky: The … Continue reading
Posted in Current Events, Rabbi Thoughts
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Anti-Semitism and Occupy Wall Street
Whatever we may think of the Occupy Wall Street Movement, surely the entire conversation deserves better than than ham-handed attempt by an outfit called the Emergency Committee For Israel to insinuate that the OWS movement is just rife with kooky … Continue reading
Posted in Current Events, Jewish world
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Thinking About Zombies
It seems zombies are the new vampires. Zombies, I am told, have replaced vampires as the new undead threat of choice in the world of popular culture. Ever attuned to such cultural shifts, I started watching The Walking Dead on … Continue reading
Posted in Current Events, Rabbi Thoughts
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Death Watch
In, Guests of the Ayatollah, Mark Bowden’s excellent book about the American hostages taken in Iran during the revolution in 1979, one of the most haunting memories of some of the hostages is the psychological torture to which they were … Continue reading
Posted in Current Events
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