Joel Cohen practices law at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, LLP in New York City, and is the author (with Dale J. Degenshein) of “Broken Scales: Reflections On Injustice.”
Joel Cohen
By Joel Cohen
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Opinion Orthodox Jews must listen to the politicians. Jewish law commands it.
In an iconic remark attributed to him, Jesus famously said, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” (Matthew 22:21) Jesus was avoiding a trap set by the Pharisees seeking to persuade Pilate that Jesus opposed Caesar’s imposition of taxes. With his clever retort, Jesus effectively denied…
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Opinion We’re in an epidemic of Schadenfreude
We are approaching the moment in the Jewish calendar that commemorates the birthday of the world. But rather than celebrating our shared place on this planet, the election cycle in which we are currently embroiled has created a chasm between many of God’s creatures, even pitting us against one another. Worst of all is the…
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Community Stephen Miller’s Rabbi Was Wrong To Shame Him From The Pulpit
Stephen Miller, President Trump’s senior advisor, gets no sympathy from me. He presents as a smallminded man who advances dangerous policies, including the detention of thousands of migrant children. But Miller’s rabbi was also wrong to call him out from the Rosh Hashanah pulpit. On a holiday that is the birthday of the universe, Rabbi…
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Community America’s Legal System Is Rife With Injustice — And Jews Need To Help Fix It
Troubled greatly these days by the injustices all around us, I sat in synagogue some weeks back and came once again upon the ritual of the Sotah: the bizarre, seemingly barbaric procedure employed in Biblical times to placate a man consumed by suspicion over his wife’s unfaithfulness. Is it curious why he is so jealous?…
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Community Would The Torah Be Different If Written Today?
The Torah is a chameleon. Its words, its laws, its protocols and its dictates all reflect the color of the environment in which it was written. One imagines, though, that God Himself is a constant — what He wanted from mankind during biblical times is the same as what He wants from us today. Or…
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Community Why Are We Still Reciting Ancient Prayers Instead Of Our Own?
If you wanted to express your deep and all-consuming love for another person, would you do so using the words of a famous poet, or would you choose to communicate your own unique thoughts with words never previously uttered by anyone else? Your own words might be less artful, but they would surely be more…
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Community Is Modern Orthodoxy Just A Social Club?
The Orthodox Jewish community is often characterized as being obsessively ritualistic, pious and insular. More so than other denominations, our religious practice requires fealty in every area of our lives, from the first words we say when we wake up in the mornings, every morsel of food we consume, the clothes we wear, and the…
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Culture Commission Calls For Immediate ‘Chaiflation’
[ ![][2]][2] A joint commission of Israeli and Jewish communal leaders is urging that the numerical translation of the word “chai,” long associated with good luck, be changed from 18 to 25 as a form of economic stimulus. “We believe that by embarking on this policy of quantitative expansion, the Jewish community can jump-start the…
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In Case You Missed It
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Yiddish פֿיר צײַטן פֿון יאָר מיט פֿינף סאָנעטן פֿון אַ גאַנץ יאָרFour seasons in five sonnets
דער זומער איז אַן עקשן, ער וויל ניט, וויל ניט קומען, הגם אויף בייטן וואַקסן צעקווייטיקט שוין די בלומען.
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Opinion My university is enabling the Trump administration’s worst fallacies on antisemitism
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Yiddish World How ‘Hacks’ botched its Yiddish line
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Books For the Jews of Venice, an uneasy history of scapegoating and grudging tolerance