Canada
I spent a night in Canada last week and the experience must be shared for it highlighted the hopelessness and hope represented by Jewish youth in these days, the twilight of Jewish greatness in the golden lands of the West. The occasion was a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation television show, known as “Under Attack.” The show, […]
Inexplicable
The inexplicable, masochistic drive that sends liberal intellectuals sprawling at the feet of assorted racists to be berated, insulted and spat upon, hit a new high of madness last week at a Greenwich Village fixture called the Village Vanguard. Ostensibly, the purpose of the evening was a discussion of art and politics with particular emphasis […]
The Worker
On the last day of the late, unlamented year, the Worker, organ of the Communist conspiracy in the United States, published an editorial aimed at the Jewish people. Titled “Chanukah’s Tradition,” it is a stupefying lesson in brazenness. “The beginning of Chanukah – Feast of Lights – last week is a reminder once again of […]
Much to Be Proud Of
Life is essentially a question of values. Every man sees as his goal in life the target that he deems to be most desirable. Every man judges his own happiness and satisfaction with life in terms of his possession or lack of possession of those things that he considers worthwhile and valuable. The observant Jew […]
A Gift for Reb Aaron
Last week, as word was received of the serious illness of the Gaon, Rabbi Aaron Kotler, a heartwarming and spontaneous reaction of grief and sympathy passed over the entire religious community. In the yeshivas and the houses of learning, students and scholars paused in the midst of their studies to supplicate and to beseech, to […]
To Our Non-Orthodox Readers
And so it is upon us once again. The end of an old year, the beginning of a new one, and finally the day of Yom Kippur. 365 days of human existence; achievement and failure, effort and waste, happiness and sorrow, life and death. One seventieth of a life gone forever. One seventieth of a […]
And Thou Shalt Love
Yesterday, another Conservative Temple was dedicated.Yesterday, ten more Jews married outside their faith.Yesterday, a hundred thousand Jewish families sat down to enjoy a non-kosher meal. Still yesterday, a million Jews lounged about the house discussing their Saturday auto ride to visit the relatives, while in New York and Cincinnati a score of young men prepared […]
In the Shadow of the Cross
“Pidyon Shvuyim (Redemption of the Captured) takes precedence over the sustenance of the poor and their raiment. There is no greater Mitzvah than that of Pidyon Shvuyim … and he who turns his eye from redeeming him, transgresses the commandments ‘Thou shalt not harden thine heart and shalt not close thy hand … Thou shalt […]
The Bnei Israel
“When is a Jew not a Jew? When he is in Israel, if he belongs to a sect of which the Chief Rabbi disapproves. And being considered a non-Jew in Israel can be awkward, especially if one falls in love.”(Time magazine, July 28, 1961). With this opening paragraph, unfortunately remarkable for its almost totality of […]
The Heavy Mantle
Woe unto the generation whose leader thou art: For you have no knowledge of the suffering of the wise; how they support and feed themselves (Brachos 28a). It is the envy of childhood that, to it, all things seem clear and simple. In the wonderland of the young, there are few complexities and all things […]