יום שישי, ד׳ תמוז תשפ״וFriday, June 19, 2026
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Elliot Resnick, Ph.D., served as chief editor of The Jewish Press from 2018-21. He is the author of six books and the editor of four more including, most recently, The Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch Dictionary. These books, and his new online course, “Ten Tips to Drastically Improve Your Writing,” are available on his website, www.BrennBooks.com. He was a student in Rabbi Kaufman’s class from 1995-96.
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Ostrov writes that Rabbi Kaufman had a limp in his walk and a fire in his heart. He did, indeed.
Xi Jinping was pressuring countries not to impose travel restrictions and quarantines on people arriving from China while he was locking down his own country.
Aristotle had his theories about human behavior, as did Rousseau, Kant, and numerous other geniuses. One need not feel compelled to accept Freud’s theories any more than theirs.
If they’re speaking to me, I often wonder: Does it not occur to them that I might feel uncomfortable hearing these words?
Mrs. Davidson always made me feel supremely comfortable, accommodated my peculiar eating habits, and talked to me about school and even politics as if I were 32 rather than 12.
In terms of previous generations: Gender roles were far more defined in previous generations and people had much simpler expectations and thus were able to tolerate things to a much greater extent.
None of the great rabbanim of the past who discussed the value of a general education stressed its financial value – not the Rambam, not the Vilna Gaon, not Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch. They stressed instead its intrinsic worth.
There are more people in downtown Buffalo at night than there are in Times Square.
The Sefer Chassidim says that a person is supposed to conduct himself with a non-Jew the same way he conducts himself with a Jew.
I started reading and learning and collecting, and now I have over, I’d say, about 10,000 items – all kept very neatly in one room in my house. And to this day, all these years later, it’s still a thrill for me.
I don’t think cancel culture is healthy for anyone. I mean, you look at someone the wrong way and you get canceled.
An interview with David Schoen, Donald Trump’s orthodox impeachment lawyer.
One of the reasons I wrote this book is because the years 1945-1950 are absolutely critical for the history of Zionism and the Jewish people, and we know nothing about them.
Force someone to utter – and believe – an untruth, and all you do is create resentment, which can explode in your face down the road. Moreover, justice must be based on truth. It cannot be based on a lie.
They were very old-fashioned and very unashamed about their Judaism…. And they weren’t tormented by the kinds of questions that torment people today.
Is it really more important for the average Jew to know the laws of eruvin than it is to understand man's purpose on this earth or appreciate taamei ha'mitzvos?
In halacha, the foods that require the most supervision are meat, wine, and cheese. Now, within the cheese category, not everything is as difficult to make as my cheeses.
There seems to be unlimited power that the judicial branch has completely failed to protect us from.
Many of us remember thinking as children, “My mother will kill me if I…” This thought kept us from acting in ways we otherwise might have.
The folks claiming only a lunatic would inquire about fraud are used-car salesman denigrating a customer who wants to pop the hood.
As a chaplain in the army, I have met countless Christians who quote the verse from Lech Lecha to me, “And I [G-d] will bless those who bless you..."
When you call somebody a racist or a Nazi, civility has ended.
I don't think you necessarily learn healthy social skills by being thrown into the pack with everybody.
We have shuls in Dubai and in Abu Dhabi. In addition to the 2,000-3,000 Jews who live here, we now have thousands of Jewish tourists who are already starting to come.
Forced to defend Judaism and their Jewish brethren, these rabbis summoned their best arguments and refused to back down – often at the cost of their lives. They were both unfree and free at the same time.
If you engage in BDS, you will be held accountable, you will be sued, and eventually - if you're stupid enough to go to court - you will be held liable.
God didn't give us this great free republic so that eventually we would just say, Well, it's not going so well, we're going to just let it go.
“In Rav Yechiel’s disputation, he says the Talmud’s discriminatory laws against non-Jews don’t apply to Christians.”
You got the message either subtly or not so subtly that America was a great country, that its founding made it great and unique in the history of nations, and that we are part of that American project.
Many Western heroes were unfortunately prejudiced against Jews. Some even detested them. But we don’t go around demanding that people stop reading Voltaire’s Candide, burn Ford cars, rename Stuyvesant High School, or demolish the Lutheran Church.
Stealing a pair of sneakers has to do with emotions? The people who are doing this are doing it lishmah, in memory of the black victim? Really?
If they can sell clothing at Target, why can’t we sell clothing at our stores?
Other organizations also bring Spanish-language journalists to Israel, but we’re the only organization that has a follow-up mechanism and that works 24/7 to provide these journalists and influencers with anything they need to cover Israel.
In his store, customers are asked to wear masks and stay six feet away from each other.
“After 1967, Rabbi Twersky and Rav Soloveitchik ate breakfast, lunch, and supper together three days a week, spent Shabbasos together, and formally had chavrusa time together.”
Hashem gave us our house, but now this man wants it, and we should give it to him. Why do we deserve our house more than he does?
Yeshiva-educated Jews take pride in making fine distinctions. Perhaps rightfully so. The ability to distinguish – after all – is the basis of wisdom, says the Gemara.
The cops I talk to see the worst of underclass behavior, but they fervently believe they’re supported by the good people in the community and continue to work on their behalf.
Can a frum Jew confidently assert that it's “the common responsibility of the Jewish people” to maintain Israel as a democracy?
If somebody reads that Ashkenazi Jews have higher IQs than people of Scots-Irish descent – and I speak as a Scots-Irish person – and they feel resentful, that’s their problem.
In Iran, Persian Jews didn’t have the opportunity to learn. When they came here, they actually wanted to celebrate Iranian non-Jewish holidays – because that’s what they knew.
Even the most radical Zionist of the last 70 years, Rabbi Meir Kahane, never had any ambitions to conquer the East Bank.
Many attempts to secularize Judaism describe halachot as utilitarian. They’re useful for certain purposes as opposed to being acts in which you can connect to a personal G-d.
The first thing we have to do is recognize the problem. How do you solve a problem if you don’t even recognize where it’s coming from?
Desbois is not just interested in where the Jews were killed. He wants to know exactly how they were killed. No detail is too small for Desbois in documenting what he calls the “Holocaust by Bullets.”
Believing in man over G-d naturally leads to selfishness, which leads to a society not having children.
There’s a note in the file from U.S. army intelligence saying: We have no objection to his extradition – and then it’s as if Kammler never existed. There’s no trace of him from that point forward.
Judaism doesn’t believe in racial tests, but it does believe in ideological ones.
Rosenberg and his family escaped Germany on January 23, 1940, thanks to an affidavit provided to them by a complete stranger from Texas.
If these people [Tlaib and Ilhan Omar] amass even more power or they’re not held accountable for the crimes they commit, what's to stop them from inciting violence against Jewish people?
A new Jewish podcast has joined cyberspace: "The Mos Show," featuring Nachman Mostofsky and Rabbi Yechezkel Moscowitz, executive director and president, respectively, of Chovevei Zion, an affiliate organization of the National Council of Young Israel. The show is part of J*tribe radio, which launched two months ago and currently hosts seven programs on technology, fashion, […]
Asked if he ever thought of quitting, Rabbi Rosenshein said, “Never. You don’t live without it.”
My father, Dr. Lawrence Resnick, passed away in 2004 (on the 15th of Iyar) at age 55. Remembered by many for his brilliance, joviality, and unassuming nature, my father graduated medical school at age 21 and went on to serve as Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College and co-executive editor of The American […]
Of the 40 people involved in the operation – 20 intellectuals, and 20 technical workers – 33 perished and seven survived.
If no people on earth existed other than the Israelis and Palestinians, Israel would still respond with “restraint.” Why?
When you look at Jewish civilization, it seems to me that it is the most superior civilization that has ever existed.
The Times was staunchly opposed to Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon and incredibly uncomfortable with Netanyahu.
We're tolerant of the intolerant under the guise of tolerance.
This is Twitter. I'm not having a university debate. Somebody tweeted at me. I replied. That’s the way Twitter works.
Many women do regret their abortions, and it’s very rare for women to just go back to normal after having an abortion.
A psychology major at the University of Central Florida, Malka said most Jews on his campus lean right. That is not the case on many other campuses, however – which is why, in part, YJC was founded.
I think you have to give the left a taste of their own medicine.
With each new conquest and success, I felt something was missing. Each new acquisition left me feeling empty.
We are the only group that never changed its platform. We are loyal to the same exact things we were loyal to 30 and 40 years ago.
I think there are many issues we can work together to solve, and I think getting too deep into culture wars is not conducive to that.
When the administration’s policies are good for New York, I will support them. When they aren’t – like the tax bill – I will negotiate and make them better.
We've been living with obesity, diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer's, and cancer for so long that we assume they've always been present. But that's not the case.
A fascinating interview with the esteemed and prolific translator 96 year-old Eliyahu Munk.
So if there’s a model for North Korea to follow if it wants to liberalize, it would be a place like Singapore.
The Palestinians produce propaganda every day, using Nazi cartoons, with which they brainwash their children about the "demonic Jews" and the Jewish a conspiracy against Islam and humanity.
It's not the same in Israel. Academia is still a real flashpoint with charedim. And particularly in regards to women.
“Israel was created exactly 70 years ago as a haven for refugees from the Holocaust.” Portman may believe this, but as a matter of historical fact, it simply isn't true.
We should certainly object to exploitation and harsh working conditions, but to object to work makes no sense whatsoever.
Putin is reported to have personally ordered the assassination of a former Soviet intelligence agent in the UK. They have no way of knowing such a fact – because it isn’t a fact, and it makes no sense.
I liked the promise of a new future, but I didn’t understand why it had to be anti-Zionist or anti-Jewish.
Some of the most famous and important works of literature contain passages and themes that are immodest in nature. May a G-d-fearing Jew read these works for the good they contain, or must he forgo reading them entirely?
It’s scandalous. Purim is supposed to be a celebration of kabalas haTorah, accepting the Torah.
Britain was so undermanned and under-armed at this point that a Jewish army of 50,000-100,000 soldiers could have made a significant military impact.
You have to be willing to start over when things aren’t working out. Sometimes it’s physically starting over and sometimes it’s a mental thing.
I want to be very clear, though: Almost everybody holds that even if a kohen can attend medical or dental school, he cannot participate in any way shape or form in the actual dissection of a dead body.
While critiquing Israel isn’t anti-Semitic, attacking it with disproportionate venom – as many regularly do – almost certainly is.
People want to know about their Jewish identity. And I don’t think you can have a Jewish democratic state without Judaism. It won’t work.
In general, Judaism values the private and the discrete – the “thin still voice” – over the public and the overt. Wearing one’s tzitzis tucked into one’s pants is a sign of modesty, not embarrassment
People thought of her as this soft America girl. So she worked harder than anybody on the kibbutz – until her hands were rough and practically bleeding – to show her dedication.
He knew what happened in the Holocaust, and he didn’t want to see Israel [destroyed].
Israel’s fighter pilots shot down 24 hostile airplanes in air-to-air combat during the war without losing one.
They could send and receive mail in the concentration camps but not in the death camps.
With a few exceptions, I really did not count shtiebels, yeshivas, or shuls in a storefront or someone’s home.
Today it seems strange, but in those days, the 1950s, even rabbis didn’t always go around England with yarmulkes on.
You want the prisoner to think, "These guys already know a lot about our forces, so what harm is there in me telling them a little bit more?"
Omitting imaginary books like How Jewish Unity Became a Reality During the 21st Century, I think I’d really like to read the definitive epic saga of the teshuvah movement of the second half of the twentieth century.
The Reform movement says pluralistic prayer is a Jewish value, but how can they claim to represent Jewish values when they don’t represent Judaism?
Lehrhaus emerged as the brainchild of young scholars and writers who sought to fill a void in contemporary Orthodox discourse.
There are around 100,000 Israelis here. We call it the second Israel. There are chummus shops and falafel shops – you feel very much at home. It’s like a huge kibbutz.
We regard it as a chillul Hashem when liberal rabbis offer opinions in the media that clearly run contrary to the Torah.
The Holocaust was a period of great extremes. On one extreme was a regime that launched a program of mass extermination while the whole world largely sat back and watched.
Just one book is needed: Eim HaBanim Semeicha by Rabbi Yissachar Shlomo Teichtel. It reminds you why you came here in the first place and everything falls in line after that.
If Israel wishes to clear the moral air, it must start acting like it actually owns the land. Real owners don’t whine to others or try to please violent squatters. Real owners assert their authority – unapologetically.
It’s unbelievable, if you think about it: After 2,000 years – in 1967 – we came back to the land where our winery is located and found this coin with the date 67.
For Rav Hirsch, when Hakadosh Baruch Hu chose Klal Yisrael to be the am segulah, He was not rejecting the rest of mankind.
