The power of singing on Friday night

March 18, 2014

The next time you go to synagogue on a Friday night, take a moment to consider how many people are there for the davening (the prayer itself) and how many for the communal singing? If queried, most congregants will probably respond with some combination of commandedness and connection to God. But from a sociological perspective, there’s a […]

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Haredi Nation vs. Startup Nation: JNext and the Irony of Sunday’s Protest

March 4, 2014

The irony was almost too delicious – and at the same time dreadfully serious – to avoid. The hundreds of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews who rallied on Sunday essentially against integrating into Israeli society nearly sabotaged an event across town meant to position Jerusalem as the “capital” of the Startup Nation with all the jobs […]

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Eddie and the White Smoke

February 18, 2014

We love our 1995 Toyota Corolla. It’s in fantastic shape and is our only car for driving out of Jerusalem. (Our other car is a Better Place electric vehicle which is now essentially a very expensive “city car” – but that’s another story.) So, when a car repairperson rolled down the window in his vehicle and […]

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TheTorah.com Embraces Biblical Criticism – Too Far or Not Enough?

February 12, 2014

It was almost a throw away comment, coming in the last half hour of a four part lecture series on “Truth and History in the Bible.” But in it lies the germ of revolution, with the power to rock traditional understandings of Jewish history, religion and the even the very underpinnings of rabbinic authority. The […]

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Atheist Rabbis “In the Closet”

February 5, 2014

Avraham (not his real name) is an Orthodox rabbi living in the center of the country. He is married with five children, and has a comfortable job as a rabbi/educator at a local religious school where he teaches fifth and sixth graders. There’s only one problem: Avraham no longer believes in God. But this newly […]

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Detox: A Sleeping Pill Addict Goes into Voluntary Rehab

January 28, 2014

There’s no easy way to admit this: I’m a drug addict. My particular addition is relatively benign and not in any way illegal – it’s sleeping pills. But I’ve been hooked on them for 13 years now, since the days when helicopters would fly above my house during the Second Intifada on their way to […]

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Yossi Klein Halevi Book Launch Highlights a Cultural, Centered Jerusalem Village

January 20, 2014

“They promised me heat!” Asher Abraham blurted out at the conclusion of last night’s launch event for Yossi Klein Halevi’s new book “Like Dreamers.“ Abraham’s Highlight Foundation had produced the evening at Jerusalem’s First Station shopping and restaurant complex. But looking at the three story tall tee-pee like metal skeleton, punctuated by billowing sheets of plastic, enclosing much of […]

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Toughing It Out: A Colonoscopy in Jerusalem

January 13, 2014

The waiting room in the gastro clinic at Shaarei Tzedek hospital is pleasant enough. Recently refurbished, there’s free WiFi, extra padded seats (a thoughtful touch given the nature of the work done there) and clean walls. The wall-mounted TV hums away, but not too loudly. I was at Shaarei Tzedek as the “designated driver” for […]

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Isaac Asimov’s Jewish/Israeli Predictions…for 2014

January 6, 2014

Every New Year’s, I like to roll out some predictions of what I think might happen in the 12 months to come. For 2014, though, I want to take a look back, at a set of predictions made on the occasion of the 1964 New York World’s Fair, by the science fiction master Isaac Asimov. […]

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More Sex and Halacha: Have We Gone Too Far…or Just Far Enough?

December 30, 2013

It was pretty much a given that my most recent article, with the provocative title “Sex and halacha: a disturbing look at the sources,” was going to attract attention. But even I was surprised by the overwhelming negative response I received from talkbacks and those Facebook friends who chose to chime in. To quickly recap: I […]

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