Rabbi Avi Shafran
By Rabbi Avi Shafran
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Opinion ‘Blasphemy’ is non-halachic Jews name-calling Haredim
In her denial of a temporary restraining order to prevent Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s latest, onerous rules for “virus uptick areas” in several Orthodox-heavy neighborhoods, Judge Kiyo A. Matsumoto of Federal District Court in Brooklyn posed a rhetorical question. “How,” she asked, “can we ignore the compelling state interest in protecting the health and life of…
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Opinion By treating Orthodox Jews as the enemy, Governor Cuomo made himself one.
On Tuesday morning, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo met with a group of Orthodox Jewish rabbis and community leaders. The meeting was intended to be, as Cuomo put it, a “good conversation” about the reasons he was placing restrictions on several New York City neighborhoods experiencing an uptick in positive cases of COVID-19. The governor…
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Opinion Why did the Orthodox relax COVID restrictions? Our hopeless optimism
Despite a common stereotype of Jews as worrisome or depressed, at heart we of the tribe are really inveterate optimists. That’s why we’re always barking up utopia trees (though many of the “progressive” isms we’ve embraced over the centuries turned out to be disappointments). I think that our inherent optimism may figure into why parts…
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Opinion What Jewish tradition offers the abortion debate: Some much needed nuance.
Long before the political hyper-polarization currently plaguing American society, abortion was a divisive political issue. “Pro-lifers” punched the air in one corner of the ring; “pro-choicers” in the other. The latter won the match in 1973 when the U.S. Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade established women’s constitutional right to choose to end a pregnancy….
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Opinion Partisanship is tearing the Orthodox community apart
Recently, a handful of concerned Orthodox Jews, myself among them, wrote an open letter to the larger Orthodox community. It was titled “Sinai, Not Washington,” and its message was simple: “The unhealthy intertwining of Torah values and politics brings disrepute to Torah and harm to Torah Jews.” We had begun to witness some of the…
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Opinion My fellow Orthodox Jews: Start fighting for the Uyghurs
The Chinese concentration camps for Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities should strike fear into Jew's hearts
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Opinion A Supreme Court decision just exposed how liberal Jewish groups abandoned Jewish education
As is common in church-state cases, the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling earlier this week that religious schools cannot be exempted from government programs which provide aid to other private schools was welcomed by some as a breath of fresh air — and by others as the illest of winds. The decision, Espinoza v. Montana Department…
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Opinion What does Jewish tradition say about tearing down statues? It’s complicated.
We Jews aren’t big statue fans. You know, that second commandment and all: “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.” I remember back in the 1970s when my father, the beloved rabbi of a Baltimore synagogue that attracted Jews of all backgrounds, received a large, heavy package, a gift from a congregant. He…
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