He’s the most powerful Orthodox rabbi in Los Angeles. The yeshiva and kollel communities look to him for guidance. He is the power behind the RCC.
What does he want? What is his vision?
He strikes me as a man who toes the party line of charedi leader Rabbi Elyashiv in Israel.
Rabbi Bess has isolated Modern Orthodoxy’s two Los Angeles scholars — Yehuda Bukspan and David Rue (Los Angeles Beit Din).
People would ask questions of Rabbi Bukspan and then report back to Rabbi Bess who’d use their information to push Rabbi Bukspan to the margins of the Orthodox community.
Rabbi Bess is a master politician, a builder of coalitions and a grand strategist.
Writers are often attracted to other creative folks, including other writers. Nothing wrong with this in a general sense, mind you. We all love who we love, and what’s not to love about another witty, smart and talented person? The problem financially speaking, however, is that other writers very often have the same basic financial issues: low, irregular pay, no benefits, poor finance skills, tendencies toward flakiness and risk-taking, and such. Two incomes are theoretically better than one, but two sporadic incomes accompanied by everything else that comes attached to the writing life isn’t necessarily as much better than one would expect. And don’t forget: Kids may happen. They often do.
Marc B. Shapiro writes: See here A few days before his death, Rabbi Meir Kahane spoke at Brandeis. I think it was actually his last public talk before the night he was killed. For a video of Gopin confronting Kahane seehere at 24:20, 31:50, and 43:05, and 56. Gopin starts to speak extensively at 1:02:45. The man standing next to Gopin is Dr. Aryeh Cohen, who also briefly served as Orthodox advisor at Brandeis. He now teaches at the American Jewish University. See here.
DF comments: The Kahana video really makes one pause, for many reasons. You see his repulsive antagonists, including that idiot Gopin, shouting that land for peace was the solution. Yet here we are, almost 20 years later, and you still hear leftists claiming land for peace will work. The human mind must have an infinite capacity to believe in fantasy.
It makes me think also how obnoxious it is for 18 year old kids to publicly challenge a man nearly three times their age. No embarassment, no recognition that they are dealing with a man who thought about their juvenile attacks 30 years before they were born. Not long ago I was thinking how overly obsequios yeshivah bachurim are to their rebbeim. Maybe they are, but this video is a good corrective to see the other side is just as bad.
NACHUM LAMM WRITES: DF, like I said, check out Gopin’s blog. *He* still believes in all this nonsense, perhaps now more than ever.
"nearly three times their age."
He was more than that at the time.
You have to love how Gopin refers to him as "Meir," and R’ Kahane casually replies, "Nu, ‘Meir,’ OK, ‘Meir’ it is," and keeps on referring to Gopin, the much younger man, as "Rabbi."
Gopin’s buddy at least laughs at R’ Kahane’s jokes at their expense; Gopin seems to be frozen.
The absolute best is the little question and answer session on the Sanhedrin:
Kahane: Is Judaism democratic?
Gopin: [Silence. Crickets chirp. Titters from the audience.]
Kahane repeats the question.
Gopin: Well, the Sanhedrin made its decisions via a vote of the majority…
Kahane [as if he hadn’t heard that clearly]: What was that? A vote?
Gopin [not getting it]: A vote of the majority…
Kahane: A vote?
Gopin: The Sanhedrin made its decisions…
[Now, citing the Sanhedrin here is a giant non-sequitor if not a perfect concession, and a bunch of possible responses bubbled through my head. But Kahane, bless him, nailed the perfect response on the spot.]
Kahane: And how many non-Jews sat on the Sanhedrin?
Gopin: [You can’t hear the crickets only because the audience is laughing too loud. He tries a bit more, but the argument is clearly over. Come to think, Gopin lost the argument the second he called Kahane a Nazi; Godwin’s Law had just been invented, but Kahane sums it up pretty well in response.
Just checked out Lopatin’s page. Didn’t expect much from him, considering his most famous congregant(s), but…I just gotta wonder what it is about Maimonides graduates and Rhodes Scholars who really get into Islamic studies and develop Stockholm Syndrome.
Reason number one modern Orthodoxy has problems catching on with some (especially in Israel)? Lunacy like this.
ZALMAN ALPERT WRITES: Marc,
Things were not always so great at Brandeis.
My brother Nate was there from 1969-1973 and was essentially the only student with a kippah the whole time.. There were a sprinkling of other Orthodox students male and female. with a number of Baale teshuva. In 1973 things started to change.
There were also several orthodox students in the NEJS graduate program several of whom have become well known scholars and academics.
A elderly rabbi Rabbi Mann acted as the kashruth supervisor . Kosher food was available and there were Shabbat services as well as Sabbath meals.
But essentially the atmosphere and the administartion was more interested in attracting non Jewish students (like the daughter of Hugh Hefner Christy) than Orthodox ones.
You are correct about rabbi Albert Axelrod. My brother found him helpful open minded and kind.
The Bostoner rebbe was active on the campus at that time and some students traveled to Brookline for Shabbath. There certainly was no orthodox rabbi on campus but several faculty were ordained rabbis.
Why the picture of Rabbi Twersky, was he always bearded or was the beard grown after his father died.Does his beard make him greater than lets say his brother in law in Israel who is clean shaven ?
Twersky was obviusly a great academic scholar but calling him Talner rebbe takes away from his real and primary identity which was professor and scholar not rebbe.
I do hope that the MO community does not fall into the same trap of our right wing brothers and create mythical figures. Rather celebrate the greatness of the scholars we admire.It would be interesting to see a critical and frank discussion of the relationship between Dr. Twersky and his father in law as well as the whole Twersky family in Brookline (Talner branch).
Lew Lehrman the almost governor of NY if he was almost governor then Dukakis and McGovern were almost president of the USA. Lehrman lost in a landslide and his cadidacy was of a sacrificial nature as the GOP put him up as he funded his own campaign. I believe he owned a chain of drug stores. His greatest moment was visiting the bobover rebbe and some moron put a shtreimel on his head.
ARYEH WRITES: As someone who was at Brandeis as a student during part of Dr. Shapiro’s (I know he would want me to call him Marc, but I am giving him his due kavod) tenure as well as another that of another Orthodox advisor, I would echo all of the stories mentioned here. There are several other interesting stories about Orthodox life at Brandeis that may be worthy to point out.
1. Orthodox students chartered a club through both Hillel and the student senate which was initially called BOG, Brandis Orthodox Group, but quickly became BOO, the Brandeis Orthodox organization as it still known today. It under the aegis of BOO that the Beit Midrash was opened.
2. The Kosher cafeteria at Brandeis is I think failry unique. It is operated in the same dining hall as an unkosher cafeteria. All students, regardless from which kitchen they get their food, must keep their food on a tray. No food is allowed on the tables. During my time, this was enforced by the then elderly Rabbi Mann and volunteer kosher cops (student committee).
3. I agree with Dr. Shapiro that the NEJS faculty resources, along with the fantastic library and archives, are underappreciated by undergraduates.
4. I recall the issue of the Torah procession slightly differently. The issue was raised, debated, learned and the shailah was asked. However, I thought the practice became that a man would carry the Torah on the men’s side to the back. At the back there was a table. The Torah was placed on the table, and then picked up by a women who carried the Torah on the women’s side. I recall the limiation on the teshuva being the unique kiruv nature of college.
6. The horrendous terorist murder of Allysa Faltow A’H who was on a junior year abroad program shacked the community badly.
5. Since my graduation, I know that Chabad has established a growing presence just off-campus.
Finally, with respect to Rabbi Lopatin. I davened in that shul for a few years when I was living nearby. At the time, he did not hold like this, but held that Birchot HaShachar was not to be said out loud by the Baal Tefilah. The Ball Tefilah said out loud "Baruch Atah" so you knew davening started and then picked up only with the ending of the full paragraph, thus avoiding the "issue".
S. comments: "That picture of R. Soloveitchik doing the mitzvah tantz is hilarious. Is it only me, or does the frozen half smile on his face look like internally he is feeling a cross between mortified and nauseous?"
The Memoirs of Nahum N. Glatzer (New York, 1997), pp. 126-128. Although Glatzer left Orthodoxy, in his younger years he studied in R. Salomon Breuer’s yeshiva in Frankfurt, and also with R. Nehemiah Nobel. As such, he understood Orthodoxy very well. Glatzer, who died in 1990, was retired when I came to Brandeis in 1985. To my great regret, I never took the trouble to interview him as I did with Prof. Alexander Altmann, who retired from Brandeis in 1976. On pp. 129-130 of Glatzer’s memoir we find the following, which I am sure will interest many readers of the Seforim blog.
In 1944 Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik (called “the Rov” by his followers and admirers) published in Talpiot a major article, “Ish ha-Halakhah” (the Halakhic Personality). The essay, written in a most beautiful Hebrew style, not only claimed for the observance of Jewish law the central place in Jewish life, but denied the—however circumscribed—validity of any other approach. The Halakhah demands a complete control of the Jew, to the exclusion of an emotional state of mind to accompany the halakhc function. There is no rightful place for, or justification of, a state of excitement or religious agitation, say, in the ceremony of blowing the shofar on New Year’s Day; what matters, and matters exclusively, is the proper execution of the ritual.
This exclusion of the emotional side of religion bothered me when I read the essay. I planned a polemic reply but was dissuaded by my colleagues. I happened to visit New York and voiced my feelings to Professor Louis Ginzberg, the great Talmudist. I expected him to agree with me and object to the rigid stand of the Rov. The cautious Ginzberg did not wish to commit himself, or to say something that could be quoted as a criticism of his Talmudic colleague. He, therefore, did not go beyond saying: “I like my whiskey straight,” which was a mild complaint against the Rov’s combination of Halakhah and philosophy. The only reference that could be interepreted as an admission of esthetics into the realm of religion was Ginzberg’s telling of the Gaon of Vilna (brother of Rabbi Abraham, Ginzberg’s forebear in the seventh generation), who near death admired the beauty of the etrog that was brought to him, since the day was one of the Sukkot festival days.
(The Rov, apparently, would have felt: Never mind the etrog’s beauty. What matters is that the citron is without blemish and the benediction is properly pronounced.).
I was disappointed that Ginzberg did not wish to take seriously the younger man’s question. In the meantime, the Rov changed his position and realized the wider dimension of faith. If you wait long enough . . . [ellipsis in original]. Yet, even with the changed position on the part of the Rov, Ginzberg, were he alive, would insist on having his whiskey straight.
Although he might not be fired, any Modern Orthodox rabbi who stated as follows would also be in hot water, as the congregation would be outraged: “One is not allowed to admire gentiles or praise them.” The writer of these words goes on to say that collecting baseball cards is also forbidden. “While it may be that some people trade them only for financial gain, the reason for collecting the cards is more likely because of an appreciation and admiration for the personalities depicted on them. This is forbidden.” Quite apart from the terrible lack of judgment in putting the first sentence (“One is not allowed to admire gentiles or praise them”) into an English language book (for obvious reasons), should we be surprised that a halakhist who thinks baseball cards are forbidden is one of the poskim of the formerly Modern Orthodox OU? See R. Yisrael Belsky, Shulchan Halevi (Kiryat Sefer, 2008), pp. 132, 133. (For another ruling against baseball cards, see R. Yitzhak Abadi, Or Yitzhak, Yoreh Deah no. 26.)
In my limited experience, most right-wing Orthodox rabbis permit cheating on taxes and other cheating of the goyim. Most Modern Orthodox rabbis I know forbid this behavior.
A friend of mine recently wanted to pay cash to have his car repaired but first he got the permission of his chareidi rabbi.
If you want to understand why three hasidic kids are sitting in a Japanese jail, this responsum provides all you need to know. Can anyone deny that it is this mentality that explains so much of the illegal activity we have seen in recent year? Will Agudat Israel, which has publicly called for adherence to high ethical standards in such matters, condemn Klein? Will they declare a ban on R Yaakov Yeshayah Blau’s popular Pithei Hoshen, which explains all the halakhically permissible ways one can cheat non-Jews? You can’t have it both ways. You can’t declare that members of your community strive for the ethical high ground while at the same time regard Mishneh Halakhot, Pithei Hoshen, and similar books as valid texts, since these works offer justifications for all sorts of unethical monetary behavior. The average Orthodox Jew has no idea what is found in these works and how dangerous they are. Do I need to start quoting chapter and verse of contemporary halakhic texts that state explicitly that there is no prohibition to cheat on one’s taxes? Pray tell, Agudah, are we supposed to regard these authors as legitimate halakhic authorities?
DF posts: 1. You cant expect orthodox rabbis to speak out against cheating on taxes, or misleading goyim. Because it would destroy the wine industry. Meaning, a great deal of orthodox society is contingent on the view that Christians are idol-worshippers.
Were the Meiri’s view adopted, it is true that people will eventually stop the "shtik" with government and non Jews. However, adoption of his view would also change the face of orthodoxy in an entirely different direction. All [most] the laws of yayim nesech would be out the window, for example. All the laws of bishul akum, gone. Chalav Yisrael industry, gone. Pas Akum industry, gone. Kemach, Geffen, Tov Taam, – gone, gone, gone. Kedem, Kesser, – gone and gone.
In other words, a lot of people’s jobs are riding on maintaining the preposterous fiction that Americans today are no different than the star worshippers of 2000 years ago. So, good luck advancing the Meiri’s view.
2. You are right that Rav Belsky has changed. And it’s noticeable in the OU. I have noticed that OU is now labelling many products simply as "D" or "Dairy", even when they are only produced on equiptment that also produces dairy, and the product itself doesnt have a drop of milk in it.
[Of course, OU also labels products as dairy even when the amount is less than 2% and hence bottol, but at least that’s a chumrah they’ve been following for many years.] It would be nice if the OU was upfront with the chumrahs it was following, thus allowing people who didnt care for that approach, and who werent aware of the OU’s policies, to make their own decisions.
JUMPED POSTS: How can an orthodox jew possibly say we live in a ‘moral’ society, when the most unprecedented rate of murder in the entire history of the world, in the most horrific setting possible- one’s very own offspring, is going on all around us? Do you accept the Halachah that it is murder- the highest IMMORAL crime possible, or do you not? OR, heaven forbid, say Halacha is one thing, truth another?
YU GRAD POSTS: Prof. Shapiro, while we certainly should ostracize Rabi Menashe Klein for his crazy views, what about Rabbi Dovid Cohen, who is a much more mainstream figure? As was reported in the Jewish Week and as was personally witnessed by me, he publicly said in front of one hundred people that tax evasion is permissible if you will not get caught. When subsequently questioned in private as to the justification for his views in light of the pesak in CM that such activity is forbidden, he responded that one can assume that such statements were just put there for fear of the censor. He therefore also said that gezel akum is permissible. As far as I know, he is the first posek to have said such a thing in one thousand years. He has been saying these things for many years and many people are familiar with his views on these issues. The RCA should be credited for breaking ties with him but has the Agudah world done so? What about Ohel, AJOP and Nefesh? Why do we condemn the frum criminals of the past year — after all if RDC is acceptable then why are those who follow his views to be condemned? One cannot answer that even RDC would prohibit tax evasion and theft if it would cause a Chillul Hashem because there is no doubt that the people involved thought that there was not a material chance that they would be caught. At worst they just made a poor judgment as to the possibility that Dweck would be cooperating with the feds.
Another point in your post that relates to this very disturbing issue is the historical revisionism that you discuss at the beginning of your post. When RDC spoke in Bergenfield, he said in front of one hundred people that he would deny his comments if people were to quote his statement on tax evasion. He also said that he was only making these public comments on Shabbos because he knew that there would be no taper recorders. RDC, true to his word, denied everything when questioned by the RCA about this despite the many witnesses who could testify to the contrary. That was not surprising — after all that is what he said he would do. What was most surprising was the harsh criticism that one YU RY had for those who told the RCA the truth. He told them that telling the RCA what happend was a complete lack of "kavod harav" and he did his best to make sure that the RCA would not discover what happened. He said this even though he knew that 100 witnesses could testify as to what happened. As one might guess, many of the witnesses did come forward and many in the RCA ultimately realized that this YU RY had misled them.
MARC SHAPIRO POSTS: Certain rabbis have the title attached to their name, so it makes sense to speak of them with their title: Rav Moshe, the Rav, Rav Kook — but for others (and this includes Rabbenu ha-Gadol R. Weinberg) a last name is fine.
If you want to see kavodike titles, see my Hebrew articles in Milin Havivin. In Hebrew the convention is different.
I mean, the title is by now so attached to them, that to refer to them without it, would be very strange.
MICHAEL MAKOVI POSTS: I was frequenting the Frum Teens forum, and someone asked whether it is permissible to cheer at a sports game, since the players are all gentiles. The moderator said he’d ask one of the gedolim. I responded that just the previous day, I had read Rabbi Dr. J. H. Hertz’s eulogy for a Catholic cardinal in the 1975 edition of Affirmations of Judaism.
(The 1923 edition of Affirmations of Judaism, same title and author, is an entirely different book. I might add that the 1923 Affirmations is an absolutely marvelous book, and would probably serve as a better introduction to Judaism than many books being written today. That is, assuming Rabbi Hertz’s endorsement of Kaplan’s concept of Judaism as a civilization doesn’t get Rabbi Hertz put in herem. (He uses Kaplan to uphold a concept of Judaism not very different than Rabbi S. R. Hirsch’s view in "Religion Allied to Progress" and "Judaism Up to Date", regarding Judaism governing all aspects of life. And cf. Rabbi Benzion Uziel’s concept of the Torah as our national charter.) And see Rabbi Hertz’s Early and Late for a fascinatingly consistent conflation of "Positive-Historical" and "Orthodox".)
———————————
Regarding historical revisionism of what one’s own ancestors have done, I am reminded of what David Glasner wrote on the Seforim Blog, about how Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Glasner’s own descendants have forgotten his Zionism, thus paving the way for Rabbi M. S. Glasner’s inclusion into the Frankel index of commentators on the Mishneh Torah.
Regarding Gorelick the younger, Professor Shapiro writes, "He published an essay in Or Yisrael attacking the Artscroll Talmud and his reason was simply incredible. He claimed that anything that tries to make the study of Talmud easier is to be condemned. He also argued that Talmud study is not for the masses, but only for the elite. … According to Gorelik, if the masses want to study Torah, they can study halakhah or Aggadah and Mussar."
I don’t see what is so incredible about this position. The Gemara itself states that only 100 out of 1000 will progress beyond Tanakh to Mishnah, and only 10 out of 1000 beyond Mishnah to Gemara! Yes, today, academic and intellectual achievement by the laity is greater in general, and if one has learned in university, then presumably his Torah learning should be commensurate. Still, the fact that only ONE percent of people learned Gemara back then….!!!
On this subject, Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Glasner writes in his "Zionism in the Light of Faith" ():
"And as to the manner in which Talmud will be studied in the land of Israel, a reduction in the number of those who study Talmud need arouse no fears, for the present situation is not healthy and is in the category of a deplorable necessity. The healthy and the natural doctrine is the following which was mentioned by the Mishnah in Avot, that we cited above and is implied by the Midrash in Midrash Rabbah at the beginning of Leviticus (chapter 2): [Rabbi Glasner cites the teaching regarding 100 of a 1000, 10 of a 1000, etc.]
"What a golden fruit would this doctrine yield in the land of Israel. The entire people, more or less, would be involved in the study of the Holy Scriptures, and a not inconsiderable portion would also be engaged in the study of the oral torah that is organized in the Mishnah, while the students who distinguish themselves in the study of Mishnah would be selected to devote themselves to the study of Talmud. From these would emerge true Torah scholars and giants of Torah, similar to those whom we knew in the bright era of Israel. Even without this, the situation in the land of Israel would be more healthy and more natural if only a small portion of the people will turn to Torah studies at the highest level, that is Talmudic study. It would be healthy and natural if higher Talmudic studies would be reserved to a small portion of the people, in the manner in which the tribe of Levi, which constituted eight percent of the people and did not participate in the ownership of the land and whose assignment and profession was to be the spiritual leaders of the nation, was sanctified and separated from the people to devote themselves to the study of Torah at the highest level. In contrast the other tribes, which constituted 92 percent of the people took part in various mundane occupations and were only free on the Sabbath and Holy Days to provide their souls with spiritual and moral nourishment."
"And so is it told in the Midrash: ‘When Israel was in the desert, before they entered the land of Israel, the Torah said to the Holy One Blessed Be He: "A man under his vine and a man under his fig tree." What will become of me?" For in the desert the entire people devoted themselves to the study of Torah, because they had no other worries. The Holy One Blessed Be He replied to the Torah: "I have another partner that I will give you, which is the Sabbath day, for Israel are idle from work and enter to the houses of worship and the houses of study and devote themselves to the study of Torah.’ The working man fills the Sabbath day with Torah study."
It was populated with faux yeshivas to get Orthodox Jews out of the Vietnam draft.
By 1980, there were only two Orthodox synagogues in the community — Young Israel of South Beverly Hills and Beth Jacob. There wasn’t a kosher restaurant. There was Pico Kosher Deli (under different manager) which observant people wouldn’t eat in because they did not trust the kashrut. There was a black non-Jewish guy who was the primary cook who’d be drinking coffee with real cream while cooking the meat.
In the early 1980s, Young Israel of Century City started as a breakaway minyan from Beth Jacob. They simply wanted their own minyan (like Benny’s Minyan) but Rabbi Maurice Lamm would not permit it. So they moved out and davened in a room at the Ramada Inn.
This breakaway ended up costing Maurice Lamm his job. His successor at Beth Jacob, Abner Weiss, had no problem with multiple minyanim.
Beth Jacob is filled with old timers. They’re not interested in helping people becoming observant.
YICC is for those who were raised Orthodox. They’ve designed a shul that converts and baalei teshuva (newcomers to Orthodoxy) are unlikely to feel comfortable in. In the late 1980s, Bnai David was struggling to become Orthodox.
Into the neighborhood in the late 1980s comes Aish HaTorah. It’s an outreach organization. It wants to help people. It wants to spread Orthodox Judaism. It became hugely successful. Aish Los Angeles now employs nine rabbis.
Aish is a warm shul. It wants to help you grow. Growing spiritually has been the in-thing for the past 20 years.
Aish is on the far left of charedi Judaism. It’s faux chareidi with all sorts of stuff about sports and TV and other sweeteners on its website Aish.com.
YICC is the most right-wing Modern Orthodox shul in Pico-Robertson. Women don’t dance with Torah scrolls there on Simchat Torah. They do at Beth Jacob and Bnai David.
Rabbi Kalman Topp at Beth Jacob has impeccable left-wing Orthodox credentials. One of the rabbis (Dovid Cohen?) he beat out for his position was to the right and went to Mir yeshiva.
There’s no reason to expect that any of Pico-Robertson’s Modern Orthodox shuls will move to the right in the years ahead, even as the community around them becomes more chareidi.
Shaarey Zedek in the Valley is a right-wing Orthodox shul. Shaarey Tefila in Hancock Park is holding on as a centrist Orthodox shul. Everyone there wants to be part of a Modern Orthodox shul, but their kids are moving away. They don’t want to be a Modern Orthodox in a charedi neighborhood. The shul is getting steadily older. Eventually the charedim will take over.
Wikipedia says: "Former headmaster Rabbi Dovid Landesman was recently replaced by principal Heshy T. Glass. Rabbi Landesman went to a new all-boys, Orthodox Jewish high school Aish Tamid, after leaving very recently due to differing opinions of the proper way the school should run and its main philosophy as well as the role of the principal in general. Rabbi Dovid Landesman was and remains today one of the most accomplished and influential Rabbis ever to have held a position in YULA."
YULA’s fundamental problem is that its rabbis are way to the right of the students and their parents.
Rabbi Shalom Tendler was another force keeping YULA to the right. He left in 2004 to start his own center-right yeshiva — Mesivta Birkas Yitzchak (on Crescent Heights and Pico Blvd). Rabbi Tendler does not want to appeal to a wide variety of students. He only wants the elite and he has siphoned off YULA’s and Yeshiva Gedolah‘s best students. He wants no more than 120 kids.
Harkham Hillel Hebrew Academy is the biggest Orthodox primary school in Los Angeles but it has had increasing competition over the past 15 years from Maimonides (to the right), Ohr Eliyahu (to the right), Yavneh (to the right).
Even though Beth Jacob owns Harkham Hillel, Beth Jacob’s former rabbi Steven Weil sent his kids to Yavneh.
At Hillel, Rabbi Menachem Gottesman had the philosophy that every Jewish kid who wanted a Jewish education there could get one. That many kids whose parents were not observant of Jewish law.
Rabbi Gottesman was the school’s fundraiser so he always got his way. He was more of a businessman than an educator. He hired educators.
Rabbi Gottesman did not want to shmooze all the pulpit rabbis in LA, so they did not send him their kids, and the student population at Hillel dropped.
It is actually Aish Hatorah that has done more to “normalize” intermarriage than any other organization in the Orthodox world. Not only does Aish Hatorah do outreach to the intermarried (something we can all appreciate), but they use various intermarried Jewish celebrities in their publicity, and have even honored these people at their events. I am not saying that they are wrong in what they do. After all, the old approach to intermarriage doesn’t work today, and although I find something distasteful about using an intermarried celebrity as the poster-boy to invite people to a Torah class, I see how people can disagree. But about one thing there can be no doubt, and that is that R. Aaron Kotler would be turning over in his grave if he saw what this supposedly haredi organization has done when it comes to tacit acceptance of intermarriage.
Protests expected against Intel’s opening its Jerusalem office on Shabbos: link
The Forward encourages investigating the compensation at non-profits: link
Chairites pay more attention to small donors: link
There is a new issue of Kol Hamevaser: The Jewish Thought Magazine of the Yeshiva University Student Body on the topic of "Family and Community." The whole issue is available here: link. Also, those who would like to subscribe to automatically receive a PDF version of new editions of the paper should send an e-mail to [email protected].
The Modern Orthodox Response to Orthopraxy by Eli Putterman
Prayer: A Call for Philosophical Inquiry by Sarit Bendavid
Rabbinic Leadership Reexamined by Alex Luxenberg
On the Virtue of Followership: Ein Melekh be-Lo Am by Noah Cheses"Am le-Badad Yishkon:" Must the Singular Nation Always Reside Alone? by Nicole Grubner
An Interview with Rabbi Yaakov Neuberger by Staff
Be Not Overly Modest: Tseni’ut and the Inability to Speak About Sex by Emmanuel Sanders
An Interview with Mrs. Shani Taragin: Part One by Staff
Shemirat Negi’ah and Reality by Nathaniel Jaret
Reality Check: Lo Tikrevu le-Gallot Ervah and Shemirat Negi’ah by Shaul Seidler-Feller
Musar’s Incomplete Victory by Rabbi Yosef Blau
"A Yid iz Geglaychn tzu a Seyfer Toyre" by Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik
Don’t Read This Essay by Reuven Rand
Beginning the Conversation: A Review of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’ Weekly Readings of Be-Reshit by Shlomo Zuckier
Oldest Member writes: I find it amazing that the "Who is a Jew" article is the second most e-mailed NY Times article, according to their website.
Two observations: (1) The Times really is the house organ of the Jews. (2) Even secular Jews care about this issue. I don’t think there are enough religious Jews among Times readers to make the story #2.
NACHUM LAMM POSTS: The funniest part of the British story is that instead of admitting non-Jews, the school has essentially gotten around it by limiting enrollment (as it had not been before) to Orthodox kids. So the result has been more limited enrollment than before. Congratulations to the courts for screwing things up even more, but then that’s what they do best.
Charlie, do you think the US courts can’t order yeshivot around? Of course they can. Have you never seen those "non-discriminating" notices in papers? In any event, separation or not, this is clearly against British traditions. But tradition, of course, means nothing to leftists.
The "body" of Steinsaltz is really just a translation, while Artscroll’s is almost a running shiur.
I found it cute when, in an article in the New York Times announcing the completion of Artscroll, there was a picture of R’ Scherman with a Steinsaltz on his desk.
Steinsaltz takes into account facts of history, realia, science, geography and so on from "external" sources that Artscroll ignores. Take the references to "Sunday people" in Avoda Zara (learning it now) that Artscroll simply cites Rishonim as referring to some Babylonian sect when, obviously (see the context etc.), it is referring to Christians.
So if you want to understand the Gemara as traditionally learned, Rishonim and all, Artscroll is for you. (Although Steinsaltz has that as well.) If you want more factual correctness- including different girsaot and so on- take Steinsaltz. (Although, again, Artscroll has that, the Hebrew, interestingly, more than the English.)
"This guy knows all the gossip, the ins and outs, the lashon hara of the Orthodox world. He’s an [expert] in... all the inner workings of the Orthodox world." (Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff)
Marc,
As someone who was at Brandeis as a student during part of Dr. Shapiro’s (I know he would want me to call him Marc, but I am giving him his due kavod) tenure as well as another that of another Orthodox advisor, I would echo all of the stories mentioned here. There are several other interesting stories about Orthodox life at Brandeis that may be worthy to point out.