Are Taxes Fair, Good, or Jewish? A Defense of the Progressive Taxation

Published on March 5, 2012

Guest Post by Rabbi Seth Winberg Defending Rabbi Dov Linzer’s New York Times Op Ed

Published on February 13, 2012

Expert in Jewish law, women’s health offers intimate help

By Julie Gruenbaum Fax
Published on November 2, 2011

Recently, a young woman who had suffered a miscarriage called Shoshana Samuels, who is a yoetzet halacha, a trained adviser in the Jewish laws of family purity. Samuels was able to answer the woman’s halachic (Jewish legal) questions about the bleeding following a miscarriage, but she had some questions for the woman.

Personalize your ketubah without breaking the law

By Michele Alperin
Published on October 10, 2008

Although the Orthodox community is committed to the existing ketubah document, whose language comes from the Mishnah, Blau said he has no problem with a bride and a groom making additional agreements and commitments, as long as they do not controvert Jewish law.

To tell the truth

By Rabbi Dov Fischer
Published on April 10, 2008

Parshat Acharey Mot (Leviticus 16:1-18:30)

The traditional English translation for the disease tzora'at that is eponymous with this week's Torah portion, Metzora, is "leprosy." However, as our commentators explain, biblical leprosy was something very different from the bacterial leprosy of modern times that is attributed to the bacillus Mycobacterium leprae. Biblical leprosy traces to a different kind of disease, an infection permeating the spirit and the soul, the disease of lashon hara (or its Ashkenazic variant spelling, lashon hara): evil talk, tale bearing and gossip.

New haggadahs bring fresh approaches to celebration

By Sandee Brawarsky
Published on April 10, 2008

This season, several new haggadahs raise new questions. New interpretations bring new approaches to the seder, enabling readers and participants to bring new layers of meaning to their own celebrations of the holiday.

Obligation or choice?

By Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky
Published on February 7, 2008

Parshat Terumah (Exodus 25:1-27:19)

Were contributions toward the building of the Tabernacle voluntary or compulsory? Those of us who have stood before our communities during a building campaign have always tended to favor the latter option, as this makes for a more effective appeal. But the classical commentaries on the Torah -- presumably more objective in their approach to the question -- are rather evenly divided on it.

Law and Order

By Rabbi Daniel Bouskila
Published on January 31, 2008

In his magnum opus on the history and development of Jewish civil law, "Ha-Mishpat Ha-Ivri" ("Jewish Law"), Israeli Supreme Court Justice Menachem Elon remarks that basing a viable modern legal system on Jewish Law is no easy task -- "it calls for great intellectual effort, creativity and boldness."

While the questions associated with incorporating Jewish civil law into Israel's legal system are complex and beyond the scope of this column, I do wish to pose one modest question: Is it possible, in select instances, for the principles and spirit of Mishpat Ivri to serve as a quasi-legal and moral guide on certain matters of Israeli policy?

The Spinka money trail—and the informant who brought them down

By Amy Klein
Published on January 10, 2008

On Dec. 19, 2007, the U.S. Attorney General's Office filed an indictment in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California naming the Chasidic yeshiva and four other Spinka organizations, as well as eight people, in a multimillion dollar tax fraud and money-laundering ring that stretched from Brooklyn to Los Angeles to Israel and elsewhere.

Key questions can answer donation motivations

By Amy Hirshberg Lederman
Published on December 6, 2007

I opened my mailbox to find several letters, a few bills and a host of requests for donations from various organizations that I have supported over the years. Because I am a stickler for organization, I sort the letters, place the bills in a folder marked "Look at me soon!" and the appeals for donations in one marked "Save the World." Between the needs of my local community, the Jewish community, our country and the world at large, I am seriously thinking about renting a storage unit for the hundreds of requests I receive annually.

Right or Righteous?

By Rabbi Debra Orenstein
Published on November 29, 2007

There is a modern-day term for the inability to admit wrongdoing: sociopathy. A conscience that cannot feel guilt is capable of untold evil. An ability to look critically at ourselves, to see where we are wrong, is the beginning of making things right. Being right -- in the narrow sense of "correct" -- amounts to very little, if a correct position isn't also righteous. Joseph is correct in interpreting his dreams of domination and superiority to his family, but he is also insensitive and inflammatory. He is right again, according to midrash, in what he tells his father about his brothers' bad behavior. But in Jewish law, unlike American, truth is not a defense against defamation. Accuracy is not piety.

Come, let us reason

By Rob Eshman
Published on November 15, 2007

The Writers Strike is a Jewish issue. How do I know that? Because everyone is saying it's not. The writers who are demanding a larger share of DVD rights and residuals for their work and the producers who refuse to give it to them both say, repeatedly, that despite the fact that so many of them happen to be Jewish, the strike is not -- as Jewish writers and producers told our senior reporter Brad Greenberg last week -- a Jewish issue. To paraphrase a Clinton-era favorite, you can be sure that when everyone is saying it's not about being Jewish, it's about being Jewish.

Briefs: Chabad launches Israel education program, Shoah indexer to speak, Halachah in the age of tes

Published on October 25, 2007

Community briefs.

Crocs rule as Yom Kippur shoe

Published on October 4, 2007

From secular beachgoers in Tel Aviv to right-wing Orthodox settlers in Hebron, Crocs -- the bulbous-toed, open-back, rubber summer shoe -- already were ubiquitous in Israel. Now, reports from several synagogues across America suggest, Crocs have surpassed Chuck Taylors, Keds, flip-flops and a host of other options to become the Yom Kippur shoe in the United States.

Being Our Own Gatekeepers

By Rabbi Dan Shevitz
Published on August 16, 2007

"Judges and officers shall you place at all your gates."

Thus begins our parsha, which is one of the richest in rulings, teachings and commandments, and which is therefore concerned about enforcement.

Who pays for what at today’s Jewish weddings?

By Jane Ulman
Published on August 9, 2007

Forget the Bible, the Talmud or even the Code of Jewish Law. When it comes to figuring out who pays for what at a contemporary Jewish wedding, today's families are more apt to consult Modern Bride or TheKnot.com.

An inadvertent gift

By Susan Freudenheim
Published on April 26, 2007

Maya Nahor learned she wasn't Jewish from an Israeli bureaucrat.

Battle of the sexes reaches Talmudic teachings—why can’t girls learn Gemara?

By Amy Klein
Published on October 26, 2006

The question of whether Talmud is indeed part of Jewish learning for girls and women in traditional Orthodox education has come under debate in the last two decades in Orthodox circles.

Conservative Jews Gather at Crossroads

By Sue Fishkoff
Published on December 1, 2005

How should Conservative Judaism cope with dwindling membership, growing intermarriage rates and society's increasing religious and political polarity, while remaining true to its base in halachah (Jewish law)?

The Agunah: A Modern-Day Nightmare

By Alexandra Leichter
Published on March 17, 2005

These two cases vividly illustrate the current problems of the modern day agunah (a woman chained to an unwanted marriage), because halacha (Jewish law) gives the husband the sole, unfettered power of divorce. While under Ashkenazic tradition a woman can withhold her "consent" to such a divorce, the remedies available to the victim of a recalcitrant husband or wife differ substantially.

A Night at Cafe Hillel

By Matthew Rosenbaum
Published on September 30, 2004

Mangled metal and scattered limbs have a way of changing one's perspective.

On a warm night in Jerusa-lem, my friends and I sat at Cafe Hillel on Emek Refaim Street, sipping coffee and beer, enjoying the glorious freedom of the Israeli drinking age of 18. We Americans were happy to be away from home and eager to explore the culture of a new city.

The next night, on Tuesday, Sept. 9, a suicide bomber ripped Cafe Hillel apart, killing seven and wounding dozens. The gut-wrenching images from the scene flashed across the television screen, and I struggled to keep my eyes open. The explosion had reduced the cafe's chic exterior to rubble. Israelis do not censor news footage; I could see blood on the walls and the outlines of bodies on the street. While I could barely watch, the paramedics did not flinch; they had witnessed similar scenes many times before.

Healing the Spirit, the Torah Way

By Gaby Wenig
Published on February 5, 2004

Hinda Leah Scharfstein sees the Torah as more than just the original source of halachah, Jewish law, and the earliest telling of our nation's birth.

"The Torah takes a holistic look at the individual, and it does tend to have a sort of healing effect on people," said Scharfstein, the executive director of Bais Chana Women's International, a New York-based nonprofit. "I attended my first holistic Torah retreat 20 years ago, and I have been involved on a professional and personal level with it ever since, and since then I have definitely felt better. My thinking has become healthier, and I feel more whole."

Opinions Conflict on Ending Life Support

By Rabbi Elliot N. Dorff
Published on November 6, 2003

The Florida case of a woman on life support for 13 years has put issues of how we die and when and how doctors and others should intervene on the front page. Whatever the courts say about that case, however, will only apply to federal and Florida law.

What would Jewish law say about such a case? That question is important because the issues raised in that case confront Jews often as they care for their parents, spouse and other loved ones and as they contemplate their own dying process.

The basic Jewish principle about these matters is clear: We are, on the one hand, not allowed to hasten the dying process, but on the other, we are not supposed to prolong it either.

New Mikvah Ain’t Your Bubbes Bath

By Lisa Keys
Published on January 16, 2003

Some say Fanit Panofsky was destined to build a mikvah. In her native Morocco, her great-grandmother operated a mikvah. So, too, did her grandmother.

Gay Halacha

By David Bianco
Published on January 16, 2003

Later this year, the Conservative movement's Committee on Jewish Law and Standards will most likely reconsider the subject of homosexuality. As in the past, the extremes in these discussions are not listening to each other, and there's been no mention of an obvious problem with the proposals to make halacha more gay-inclusive. (Perhaps the problem just seems obvious to me because I move comfortably in both worlds, as a shomer mitzvot Jew who once identified as gay but now accepts the authority of halacha regarding human sexuality and has been "openly celibate" for more than a year.)

The Liebermans’ Tasty New Year

By Beverly Levitt
Published on August 22, 2002

This year, 5763, Rosh Hashana falls on Shabbat, the weekly observance that Sen. Joseph Lieberman calls "a sanctuary to put the outside world on hold and concentrate on what's really important -- your faith and your family." And although Lieberman, who was the Democratic candidate for vice president in 2000, will experience the same joy he feels every Friday night as he takes off his watch and prepares to get into the Sabbath mood, during Rosh Hashana all activities are heightened -- the prayers are longer, the conversation more intense, the urgency to evaluate the past year and make resolutions for a sweet New Year more palpable.

The ‘Contemporary’ Bar Mitzvah

By Jane Ulman
Published on August 8, 2002

No, Jeremy, you cannot wear 'liberty spikes' to your bar mitzvah party," I say, referring to the hair-style that transforms my son's head into the Statue of Liberty's crown.

"Mom, you don't understand," he says. "Even when I'm 50, I'll be spiking my hair."

Can We Find the Golden Mean?

By David N. Myers
Published on May 17, 2001

In the opening book of his monumental code of Jewish law, Maimonides declared, "We are bidden to walk in the middle paths which are the right and proper ways...." The great medieval sage was articulating the golden mean, the principle that we should avoid extreme behavior, ethical or physical, at all times. The person who succeeds -- indeed, who navigates between indulgence and self-denial -- is, by Maimonides' standards, the wise one.

Jews and the Death Penalty

Published on March 9, 2000

Many people assume that Jewish law unequivocally advocates capital punishment, because of frequent references to capital crimes and capital punishment in the Torah. But while Jewish law supports the death penalty in theory, the Oral Law makes it difficult, and in most cases impossible, to execute someone for murder, says Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, director of the Jewish Studies Institute of Yeshiva of Los Angeles and the chair of Jewish law and ethics at Loyola Law School.

Jewish Law Cited in Death Penalty Case

By Michael Shapiro
Published on January 6, 2000

A man who will argue before the U.S. Supreme Court next year that his planned execution in Florida's electric chair constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment" can point to a 2,000-year-old Jewish law when he pleads his case.

Tangled Web

By Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky
Published on November 11, 1999

These are the weeks that we read of our heroes. The book of Genesis tells the stories of the faith and tenacity of the fathers and mothers of our nation for whom every day was another stride in the uncharted waters of living in covenant with God. It was their passionate determination to keep the vision of a righteous and holy people alive that ultimately produced the Jewish people. But it wasn't always easy.