Rabbi Avi Shafran
By Rabbi Avi Shafran
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Opinion The Seder Is a Mother
In a traditional nuclear Jewish family, there’s no denying that the father is the apparent authority figure. To be sure, it’s often, if not always, the case that the mother’s will and wisdom are what persevere. But, at least concerning appearances, it’s Dad who’s the “boss.” And perhaps never as obviously as at a traditional…
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Opinion Why Purim Is Holiday of Ironies
“All our struggles are in vain if the battle against the Jews is not fought to the finish. It is not enough to get the Jews out of Germany. No, they must be destroyed throughout the entire world so that humanity will be free of them.” Thus spake Julius Streicher, whose vile tabloid Der Sturmer…
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Opinion How Ultra-Orthodoxy Is Most Feminist Faith
Cris de coeur over the economic state of Israel’s Haredim are commonplace these days. Understandably so; the community is in dire financial straits. Some of the alarm may be motivated by concern for members of the Haredi community; much of it is clearly born of disquiet over what Haredi poverty and unemployment rates seem to…
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Opinion Orthodox Jews Aren’t Trying To Kidnap Your Kids
Getty Images Reading the article was wrenching. It was a first-person offering, on the website Kveller, by the non-Orthodox mother of a young woman who had adopted Jewish observance and in the process (at least in her mother’s telling) had jettisoned all respect for — apparently, all feeling for — her parents. The mother described…
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Opinion When I Drifted Off the Path
A cottage industry of memoirs detailing their writers’ journeys from restrictive “ultra-Orthodox” upbringings into the embrace of resplendent enlightenment and freedom has sprung up in recent years. Reading samples of the genre always reminds me of my own abandonment of the Jewish religious tradition in which I had been raised. I was 12. My apostasy…
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Opinion How Gil Steinlauf Chose ‘Personal Torah’ Over One True One
A respected Conservative clergyman, Gil Steinlauf, senior rabbi of Washington’s Adas Israel Congregation wrote his congregants a moving letter shortly after Yom Kippur. In it, he announced that he and his wife of 20 years, Batya, would be divorcing. That alone would have been surprise enough for his congregation, considering the model marriage, complete with…
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Opinion A Punk Rocker, Tisha B’Av and Our Love of History
The receptionist looked horrified. Well, maybe I exaggerate a bit. But she was definitely taken aback by the visitor, whose longish reddish hair, wrap-around sunglasses, piercings, leather jacket (over a tee) and boots set him apart from most of the people who are usually buzzed into Agudath Israel’s offices. I had been expecting him. He…
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Opinion Black Hats and Wigs Do Not an Orthodox Jew Make
Several years ago, when I was penning a weekly column for a Haredi magazine, the periodical declined to publish one of my submissions. It was about “Cultural Orthodox Jews,” a phrase I coined for people who eat only rabbinically supervised foods, wear black hats (or wigs), pray in synagogue daily and send their kids to…
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