I was raised a white-boy Mormon in Salt Lake City in the 1960s. It was a good place to grow up, except that everybody looked like me, and almost everybody practiced the same religion. The only “exotic” person I knew was my best friend in junior high, Barney Josephson. He was Jewish, but he stood…
I had a jarring conversation with a young woman last week. In a discussion about the challenges women face in Orthodoxy, she turned to me with a cheeky smile and declared, “I am not a feminist.” She described her perceptions of Shira Hadasha, the pioneering partnership synagogue in Jerusalem where men and women share certain…
The Orthodox Union’s Nathan Diament has some advice for Barack Obama. Writing in The New Republic, Diament — the OU’s public policy director — urges the incoming president to do more than offer religious voters symbols, like an inaugural invocation by Rev. Rick Warren. Obama, Diament writes, has an opportunity to “advance policies that are…
From Muslim imams to conservative rabbis and practically every faith in between, religion and religious leaders were front and center at the recent Republican and Democratic political conventions. Expect more of the same in the coming two months as Barack Obama and John McCain and their political parties court the religious vote. But is this…
Rabbi Avi Shafran — spokesman for the ultra-Orthodox Agudath Israel of America — seems genuinely excited about the Reform movement’s new prayerbook. To be sure, the Reform Siddur “Mishkan T’filah” is pretty far from what Shafran would consider an ideal prayerbook, but he’s pretty pleased by its steps toward tradition — particularly its inclusion of…
Circumcision has a long and fascinating history. The latest chapter is being written in Africa. The Wall Street Journal reports “circumcision dramatically reduces the risk of contracting HIV.” In some areas, such as Kenya, the circumcision rate is a high 80%. While Kenya is an exception, there is good reason to believe that ultimately the…
Sweden has long had the reputation of being a super-secular nation. Less than 3% of the population attends church. But, within the last few days, it seems that God has made His presence known in Sweden. It all began when a Swedish hotel guest checked into his room and found that the room was outfitted…
Soviet and Kosher: Jewish Popular Culture in the Soviet Union, 1923-1939 By Anna Shternshis Indiana University Press, 248 pages, $24.95. In the opening pages of her new book, “Soviet and Kosher: Jewish Popular Culture in the Soviet Union, 1923-1939,” Anna Shternshis introduces us to Sara F., an elderly Soviet Jewish émigré living in Brooklyn. Born…
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