Opinion

• Opinion

  News Quiz: The Pope, Mark Zuckerberg and Canada

  There are certain things we humans cannot get enough of, and several of them surface in this week’s news quiz. These include sexy bottoms, French food, Mark Zuckerberg’s money…and Joan Rivers.

  By Lenore Skenazy

  < 1 min read
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  Opinion

  What Limmud Can Teach Us

  The fourth and final night of the massive conference known as Limmud UK coincided with Christmas, but you’d never know it in the auditorium where thousands gathered on the campus of the University of Warwick in Coventry, several hours from London. Instead, the focus was on the two men who oversaw the annual marathon of…

  By Jane Eisner Jan 7, 2014 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Menachem Stark and God’s Missing Cliff Notes

  Amid the torrent of ink spilled over the murder of Menachem Stark — some of it callous, some of it defensive, much of it self-righteous — one of the smartest pieces appeared Monday on the website of the Jewish Press, the Orthodox Brooklyn weekly. Written by the paper’s online editor and columnist, the irreplaceable Yori…

  By J.J. Goldberg Jan 7, 2014 | 5 min read

Columnists View All

• Jay Michaelson What can really be done to prevent antisemitic attacks like Bondi Beach?

  

• Rob Eshman Australia shooting terrifies Jews worldwide — and strengthens the case for Israel

  

• Nora Berman Did crypto-Jews invent the modern tarot deck?

  

• Dan Perry The 3 responses to the Bondi Beach Hanukkah attack that could make Jews safer

  

• Emily Tamkin The fundamental miscalculation behind the GOP’s antisemitism crisis

  

The Latest

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  Opinion

  Orthodox Rabbis Stand by Avi Weiss — Sort Of

  (JTA) — The Rabbinical Council of America is standing behind Rabbi Avi Weiss of Riverdale, N.Y., in his dispute with Israel’s Chief Rabbinate — sort of. Last week, the Rabbinate for the first time offered its reasons for deciding several months ago that Weiss, an Orthodox rabbi and RCA member, wasn’t kosher enough to affirm…

  By Uri Heilman Jan 6, 2014 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Judging Menachem Stark’s Jewish Life — Not Just His Death

  A man was murdered last week. By many news accounts, he was a crook. He also happened to be a Haredi Jew. Does the last fact matter? Yes, according to the politicians who have fallen over themselves to condemn the New York Post’s typically tasteless coverage of the death, which included the headline — based…

  By Jay Michaelson Jan 6, 2014 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  Social Justice Is Not Just for Americans

  This year will witness the reintegration, at long last, of a Jewish vision for social justice in both the Diaspora and in Israel. At the Jewish Social Justice Roundtable, a recent gathering of Jewish social justice organization, Rabbi David Rosenn of the New Israel Fund and I co-led a conversation about how the situation in…

  By Jill Jacobs Jan 6, 2014 | < 1 min read
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  Opinion

  Putting Aside That Old Jewish Pessimism

  It is still surprising — funny, even — that a people that has survived and thrived through millennia filled with cataclysms can still find itself debilitated by anxiety about its future, and especially by such concerns as banal as, say, the impending retirement of the generation of baby boomer CEOs running Jewish organizations. This past…

  By Yehuda Kurtzer Jan 6, 2014 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Menachem Stark Was Good Man Who Didn’t Deserve To Die — Or Be Smeared

  My brother in law, Menachem Stark was killed this weekend. A 39-year old father of seven, he will be missed by his wife, children, friends, and so many others. He had so much ahead of him and his loss is a tragedy for all of us. He left home Thursday, and simply never returned home….

  By Alexander Buxbaum Jan 6, 2014 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Brutal Modernity Turns 100 With Anniversary of First World War

  Counting pages on the calendar probably isn’t the most instructive way of organizing the past or understanding our progress. What did we learn the past year from the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination, or the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, that we hadn’t known a year earlier? Every now and then, though,…

  By J.J. Goldberg Jan 6, 2014 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  In Menachem Stark Slay, Where’s the Humanity?

  Menachem Stark, a Brooklyn Hasidic real estate developer, was abducted, murdered, and thrown into a dumpster. Stepping to a new low, the New York Post reports this story with inappropriate levity and derision toward the victim. Practically gloating over Stark’s death, the front cover of [Sunday’s New York Post rhetorically asks, “Who didn’t want him…

  By Eliyahu Federman Jan 5, 2014 | < 1 min read
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  Opinion

  Why I Am Leaving San Francisco Jewish Federation

  In my nearly 10 years at the San Francisco-based Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund, and in my fifth year as the CEO, I have had the great fortune to be in the forefront of a community that is responding with creativity and wisdom to the changes in Jewish life in the 21st century. Having…

  By Jennifer Gorovitz Jan 4, 2014 | 3 min read