Rabbi Avi Shafran
By Rabbi Avi Shafran
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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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Opinion What does Jewish tradition say about ‘Defund the Police’? It’s complicated.
In the wake of George Floyd’s death at the hands of police officer Derick Chauvin, a new cry has emerged from amidst the protests against racism and police brutality shaking the nation: Defund the Police. The cry means different things to different people, but in addition to addressing the fraught tensions between black communities and…
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Opinion We will cherish our shuls – and the homes that replaced them during this time
Previous Article Next Article I’m not into prognosticating (I’ve tried, to poor results) so I don’t feel confident making predictions about how our Jewish world will be different when we emerge from our figurative holes, hopefully soon. But I have, if not prophecies, then hopes. And they are predicated on what our collective confinement should,…
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Opinion Anti-Zionism forced us to withdraw from Reconstructionist Rabbinical College
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News ‘No one’s allowed to talk to me’: At UW-Madison, trying — and failing — to talk about Israel
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Fast Forward New poll: 13% of voters who switched support from Biden cite his Gaza policy
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Fast Forward Police in Rouen, France, shoot and kill man who set fire to a synagogue
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News Queens College has been a model of Muslim-Jewish cooperation. Can it stay that way after Oct. 7?