Three Orthodox rabbis Hershel Billet, Kalman Topp, Aaron Glatt)  sent out this letter: Dear Friends As you well know, we are in the midst of a financial crisis unprecedented during our lifetimes. As a community we must take stock of the circumstances and react to the new realities in a responsi...

Orthodox Rabbi Reuven Spolter writes: In a "Modest Proposal" styled op-ed piece in the Jerusalem Post, Rabbi David Forman finally throws down the gauntlet. After years of trying to gain recognition from the government as legitimate streams of Judaism and years of failure, it’s time f...

Orthodox Rabbi Gil Student writes: There is a recent news item quoting R. Ovadiah Yosef as permitting women to read megillah on Purim for men (Haaretz, Arutz Sheva). This is in the news because R. Yosef recently said it publicly but it is not, in my opinion, newsworthy because he has consistently ru...

So here’s a copy of the new letter Pico-Robertson’s Modern Orthodox rabbis are sending to local businesses owned by Jews. Will this high profile campaign do any good or will it only make rabbis feel good for grandstanding on a complex topic? I want to emphasize one sentence from this new...

She came into my chatroom this week and said she was a 25 year old Persian Jew living in Brentwood. She said she’d been reading me for a while. She wanted to know why I kept beating up on the very Orthodox rabbis who could make me "one of us." "How did you know my weakness for t...

Anyone who raised an eyebrow at charges that the “Hekhsher Tzedek� kosher-certification initiative recasts the very concept of kashrut might want to aim an eye at the February 6 Wall Street Journal. At a column, that is, entitled “A Quarrel Over What Is Kosher,’ by the Forward’s Nathaniel ...

Because he did not apply. Rabbi Korobkin was the runner-up to Steven Weil in the 2000 search for a successor to Abner Weiss. He did not throw his hat in the ring this go round. By temperament, Rabbi Korobkin is more of a scholar than a pulpit rabbi. I believe he’s pursuing a PhD in Islam at UC...

Jewish soap opera alert! [HT MENAHEM MENDL] TELEVISION REVIEW 'Loving Leah' is hard to do By Matthew Gilbert, Globe Staff 'And Mercedes Ruehl." The words strike fear in my heart, especially when they appear in the opening credits of a CBS Hallmark Hall of Fame movie. As a rule, Ruehl doesn't merely ...

Dr. Kugel, Bible scholar, was the target of a well-received (in Orthodox circles) pamphlets warning Orthodox parents about the dangers of sending their kids to secular universities. Anyone who thinks that Modernity and Orthodoxy are compatible is not Modernity and Orthodoxy seriously. Dr. Kugel main...

Listen to the interview here. Read reviews of the book "The Tenacity of Unreasonable Beliefs: Fundamentalism and the Fear of Truth" here. Here is a partial transcript of our 100-minute long conversation. Luke: I ask Dr. Schimmer why he wrote this book. Solomon: "One reason was intelle...