יום ראשון, כ״ד אלול תשפ״וSunday, September 6, 2026
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Spray painted symbols of swastikas were found on road signs in the Monmouth Heights neighborhood.
So let no one praise a nation that murdered a million Jewish babies and children for shedding crocodile tears over the plight of the poor little baby boy who, following a many thousand year old tradition, is circumcised 8 days after birth. Every good person should condemn Germany for what really lies at the heart of efforts to ban circumcision—old-fashioned anti-Semitism, a term coined by Germans for Germans and against Jews.
By dvora
Hosted by Esther and Rafi Katz and attended by a wide spectrum of the L.A. Jewish community, the 4th Annual Los Angeles Puah Brunch was recently held to support the groundbreaking endeavors of Puah – the Israel-based international organization that assists Jewish couples with fertility problems within halachic parameters.
By JTA
About 50 high-ranking federal and state law enforcement officials met with an equal number of leading American Jewish officials for their first “table top” threat exercise.
The shocking video of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa trying to push through Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in the Democratic platform highlights the strong reservations that many American Jews are feeling toward the Democratic party.
However remote the prospect of acquittal, a Jew must never give up. God commands us to challenge indictment with prayer. And the rabbis urge us to confront sentencing with hunger strikes. And so, the Midrash tells us, when Moses stood before God, at a loss for words with which to defend the sin of the golden calf, God Himself donned a tallit, took to the prayer stand, and showed Moses how to pray and what to say:
If it wants to survive and thrive, Israel must base itself upon three key concepts: identity, meaning, and liberty.
By Alan Magill
The five-year-old boy was in a church in Puerto Rico with his parents. As they and his grandparents were Catholics, that made him Catholic – as far as his young mind could figure.
Last month’s column sketched the life of Reverend Myer Isaacs, concentrating primarily on his efforts to preserve and foster Orthodoxy in New York City, where he served as the spiritual leader of Congregation Shaaray Tefila from its founding in 1845 to his passing in 1879. Reverend Isaacs’s sphere of influence was not limited to New York. His efforts encompassed a broad range of activities throughout America designed to strengthen Orthodoxy in its battle against the Reform movement.
“A himmel geshrai” is a Yiddish phrase that, loosely translated, means “a tragedy of such catastrophic proportions that the heavens themselves cry out.” Sadly, every one of the letters on family breakdowns I’ve featured these past several weeks can be summed up as “a himmel geshrai.”
For the New York State Legislature in the September 13 primaries for the Democratic designation in the November general election:
“Fair and Balanced” is fast becoming more slogan than operating system at Fox News, and nowhere is this seen more clearly than in the way Israel is increasingly being treated and the extent to which anti-Semitism is tolerated as part of the cable channel’s conversation.
The start of the Jewish New Year, the month of Tishrei, is filled with holy days, among them four foundational celebrations: Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot and Simchat Torah-Shemini Atzeret.
By Ron Kampeas
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Jewish swing voters could make or break President Obama’s bid for reelection. At least that’s the case that Democratic Party leaders made in a training session that packed one of the larger halls at the convention center here on Monday, the day before the formal start of the Democratic National Convention.
By JTA
Sen. George McGovern, the Democratic Presidential candidate, greeted American Jews today on the occasion of the High Holy Days. "Mrs. McGovern joins me in wishing our Jewish friends and Jews around the world a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year," the South Dakotan said.
By JTA
Guma Aguiar, a Florida businessman and philanthropist who went missing in June, left his tefillin on his abandoned boat.
By Moshe Herman
Yishai and Malkah talk about attending the Yisrael Beiteinu conference, public transportation in Jerusalem, and how Exile is moving with the end of High Holiday services in Egypt.
By DovBear
G-d blessed Facebook’s CEO with this poignant lesson. Right as we approach the Day of Judgment, followed by times of Repentance, and the final celebration of Atonement, He blesses all of Israel with this lesson as well.
By Tibbi Singer
Israel's Supreme Court on Monday ordered the Minister of Religious Affairs Yaakov Margi and the Chief Rabbinate Council to explain why they not allow single women to immerse in state-run mikvahs.
By JTA
Israel's transportation minister has threatened to withdraw funding for a Tel Aviv bicycle rental project if it allows the bicycles to be used on Yom Kippur. Israel Katz said Sunday that the operating of the Tel-O-Fun project on Yom Kippur "is crossing a red line and breaking all the norms. The Tel-o-Fun project is important, […]
By Anav Silverman, Tazpit News Agency
According to Dr. Eldad Pardo, a senior researcher at IMPACT-SE, (Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education) and a teacher at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, hateful language against Israel is characteristic of the themes taught in Palestinian Authority school textbooks. “Jewish holy places in Israel are not recognized. They are presented as Muslim holy sites taken over by Jews. There is no recognition of Jewish people as a nation. Israelis are depicted as criminals and thieves.”
By Elke Weiss
Many Jewish people, including myself, avoid Holocaust movies because it is far too painful to watch the dehumanization of those we love. Still, facing what is painful is an important part of life. “Lion of Judah” is not an easy film to watch, but for the next generation it will be a valuable resource for educating children in a world without survivors. More importantly, it is centered on the incredible, Leo Zisman, the Lion of Judah.
"The blood of the Oslo murdered is a thousand times more dear to me than the tears dropped for the one who killed them, with help from the Arabs."
The sale of a 185-room hotel at the entrance of Jerusalem on August 16 was not just a 17.5 million dollar real estate acquisition by Australian multi-millionaire Kevin Bermeister, but one investment in a broader and more calculated strategy to make Jerusalem a global tourism capital. Up next: a subway system servicing the Old City and a Jerusalem International Airport in the nearby desert.
After more than 100 years of archeological research in Israel, I'm always surprised there's still so much more to discover. Sadly, today most such discoveries are driven by construction work. The Israeli Antiquities Authority announced today that a 6th century Jewish town was discovered north of Beersheba, during work on the southern extension of Route 6. The […]
Police uncovered attempt to poison and kill a Jewish family in Raanana in what they are calling a criminal/nationalist attack.
Does the German government really want to get into a public battle over whether they are better guardians of the health and welfare of Jewish (and Muslim) children than their parents?
For the first time in 2,000 years, there will be no Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur services at the Eliyahu Hanavi Synagogue in Alexandria in 5773, reports Daniel Greenfield in "In The Point." This was the last active synagogue in Egypt. The Egyptian authorities' excuse for the shut-down, effectively outlawing High Holiday services in the […]
By JTA
After an attack on a rabbi in Berlin, Gideon Joffe, the head of the Berlin Jewish community, said he would "not recommend that any Jew go around in parts of Berlin with a kipah." On Tuesday, Rabbi Daniel Alter of Berlin was violently attacked while picking up his daughter from a piano lesson. He currently […]
The first step to remaking Zionism in the future is learning what Zionism meant in the past.
By Tzvi Fishman
There is an old aphorism which claims that two things in life are certain: death and taxes. To this, Rabbi Kook would add a third certainty — t’shuva.
A 53-year old Jewish Rabbi walking with his daughter south of Berlin was attacked by four youths, possibly Arabs. According to reports, one of the youths asked the Rabbi if he was Jewish. After answering in the affirmative, the youths blocked his exit, attacked him, and threatened to kill his daughter. The Rabbi was hospitalized […]
By JTA
Edon Pinchot, a kipah-wearing Jewish day school student, won cheers from the live audience and the judges in the semifinals of "America’s Got Talent." Pinchot, 14, of Skokie, Ill., performed One Direction’s “What Makes You Beautiful” on the popular NBC reality show and received a standing ovation from the live audience. Judge Howie Mandel told […]
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness...” (Dr. Martin Luther King).
By Ben Sales
TEL AVIV – Like any of the Israeli army's combat battalions, the soldiers of Netzach Yehuda faced a 60-mile hike during basic training meant to simulate battle conditions.
The land of Canaan was only gained in stages by the Israelites, who had to overcome many internal divisions in order to progress. The same holds true in our day, as Jewry struggles to maintain internal unity while vacillating in its attitude toward the Land of Israel. Though the Jewish right to a sovereign state in its ancestral homeland is incontestable – biblically, historically, morally, and legally – too many Jews and Israelis are self-shackled in the chains of constraint, still mired mentally in the vulnerabilities and fears of the last two millennia, unable to discard the Diaspora.
By JTA
Edon Pinchot, a kipah-wearing Jewish day school student, will be performing in the semifinals of "America’s Got Talent."
Survival of a Jewish state requires both geographical and demographic domination of the area between the river and the sea
“We are concerned that Interior Minister Yishai didn’t think of becoming better informed about the details."
By JTA
Rabbi Asher Lopatin of Chicago is set to succeed Rabbi Avi Weiss next year at the helm of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, the Modern Orthodox rabbinical school founded by Weiss. Lopatin is the spiritual leader of Anshe Sholom B'nai Israel Congregation, a high-profile Modern Orthodox synagogue in the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago that counts Mayor Rahm […]
By JTA
A 500-year-old Sephardi women’s prayer book is being reissued in Hebrew.
The Hadassah Foundation announced 13 mini-grants for organizations serving Jewish young people in 11 states.
The Santa Monica hotel owner claims she never did or said the things the jury determined she did.
The Obama campaign seems to have no clue as to which rabbis would enhance the president's clout among Jewish voters, and which are political hemlock.
By Moshe Dann
The expulsion of 10,000 Jews from their homes five years ago was not a localized event in the Gaza Strip. It was a national implosion, a national disgrace. It caused enormous physical, psychological, social, cultural, military and strategic damage to the entire nation - and it still does. Like an ecological disaster, its foulness still seeps through our foundations, and continues to poison us.
Rabbi Meir Lau, Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv and Holocaust Survivor, attacked the Germans today with harsh words. Rabbi Lau said, "We don't need their permission to live as Jews," and added that, "I didn't see such German sensitivity to Jewish blood in the Shoah."
The truth is that Orthodox Jews are all lumped together as having the same attitudes in life. So that for example a Chasidic Jew in Williamsburg will be treated the same way a Modern Orthodox Jew in Teaneck. They are both seen as Orthodox and their worldviews are more or less seen to be the same: decidedly anti-modern. But this viewpoint doesn't reflect the reality.
By JTA
Two Torah scrolls, one complete and one incomplete, were found in Poland's Sokolow Podlaski district. The Torah scrolls found Aug. 20 are believed to have belonged to a synagogue in nearby Wegrow. A local policeman brought the scrolls to the municipal offices in Sokolow and gave them to Marcin Pasik, Sokolow Commune Head. "The policeman […]
By JTA
The chief rabbi of Lyon, Richard Wertenschlag, has received a letter threatening to "punish a Jew for every complaint the Jews make on TV." The threat came in a two-page letter delivered to Wertenschlag on Aug. 10. It contained two photos of a concentration camp, according to Dr. Richard Prasquier, president of the Representative Council […]
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
There is a fascinating detail in the passage about the king in this week’s parshah. The text says that, “When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he must write for himself a copy of this Torah on a scroll before the levitical priests” (Deuteronomy 17:18). He must “read it all the days of his life” so that he will be God-fearing and never break Torah law. But there is also another reason: so that he will “not begin to feel superior to his brethren” (Kaplan translation), “so that his heart be not haughty over his brothers” (Robert Alter). The king had to have humility. The highest in the land should not feel that he is the highest in the land.
By Ron Kampeas
WASHINGTON – The same key words and themes will bounce around Jewish events at next week’s Republican convention in Tampa, Fla., and at the Democratic convention in Charlotte, N.C., the week after that: “pro-Israel,” “marriage,” “Jewish vote” and “abortion.”
25 young Polish Jews, many of whom have only recently discovered their Jewish roots, arrived in Israel on Monday for a special seminar organized by Shavei Israel, an organization that aims to strengthen the connection between descendants of Jews and the State of Israel & the Jewish people. The participants, between the ages of 18-35, most of whom were raised Catholic, came from cities like Krakow, Katowice, Warsaw, Przemysl and Gdansk. For many it marks their first time visiting Israel.
By JTA
More than 600 rabbis have joined a campaign initiative called Rabbis for Obama. The rabbis represent themselves and not individual synagogues or organizations, according to the news release. The names of all the rabbis can be found on the website barackobama.com/rabbis. Most of the rabbis are Reform or Conservative, although a handful are Orthodox. Obama […]
A rabbi in Bavaria, Germany, has been slapped with criminal charges of committing bodily harm, in the first known case to arise from an anti-circumcision ruling.
Boteach: "I treasure the Adelsons’ support. They have been dear friends for a long time and were among the earliest backers of my campaign. Not only are they heroes in the Jewish community for their mega-philanthropy, but they are among the most generous and sophisticated political donors in the country...This donation is a game changer.”
These people are no better than the arsonists of who set fires during the '68 riots that followed the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King . Then Mayor Richard J. Daley gave police the green light to police to shoot to kill anyone seen attempting arson. People who throw firebombs into cars are murderers. There is no justification for targeting innocent people. These terrorists ought to be treated accordingly. That no one died yet from that act is a miracle.
By Sandra Ziv, Israel Campus Beat
Today, students come to study in Israel for many reasons, including professional advancement, academic requirements, personal growth, international experience, an alternative to the classroom and, of course, a connection to their Jewish heritage.
By Moshe Herman
Yishai is joined by Dan Halloran, who is running for congress from the State of New York. They discuss Halloran's reasons for visiting Israel along with his viewpoint on Israel and how it fits into his platform.
The camp, part of an ongoing effort called Project Rimon, is focused on a commitment to instill Jewish identity within the campers and use Israel as the common denominator that unites Jews of Russian origin from diverse locales around the globe.
The center of Jewish culture — spiritual, scientific, entrepreneurial, artistic — is today, as it should be, Israel. This was not the case in 1948 or 1967, but it is true now, and I can only expect it to become more true as time goes by.
Canadian singer songwriter Evan Malach won an international Hallelujah music competition. Malach, 27, sang the Israeli rock classic “Canaanite Blues” before a live audience in Hod Hasharon. The 14 finalists performed personally selected Hebrew songs. Malach won an $8,000 prize and will be invited to record a duet with Israeli singer Dudu Fisher. The song […]
Senator Lautenberg, how exactly has our President demonstrated his friendship to Israel? He declared Israel's settlements to be illegitimate, put near-unilateral pressure on Israel to make peace without any expectations from the Palestinian side, declared that Israel should return to the arbitrary 1967 borders, and treated Prime Minister Netanyahu shamefully at a March 2010 meeting where he refused even a photo op with the elected leader of the Middle East's only democracy.
A few hundred Jews and non-Jews marched in the southern-Swedish city of Malmo to protest intolerance and anti-Semitic attacks in Sweden. Malmo, with a large immigrant Muslim community, saw a surge in hate crimes against Jews after Israel's operation in Gaza in 2009. Some marchers wore a kippa. Willy Silberstein of the Swedish Committee Against […]
By JTA
Ari Ephraim Rubin, vice chairman of the Jewish Defense League died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on July 20. At 30, Ari Rubin had been active in the militant JDL, rejected by mainstream Jewish organizations for its violent tactics, since his youth, and became vice chairman in 2006. He is the son of the late […]
Articles in the media are recommending a certain kind of “conversation." In an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer in 2010, Michael Vitez describes in detail how a palliative care team brought a family into a comfortable living room for repeated discussions about their mother who had been hospitalized for confusion and falling. Over and over again, they were offered the choice of discontinuing her “aggressive" medical care, but the family held out. They continued her medical treatment.
When I began this article, I had intended to write about Anna Breslaw’s article in Tablet (www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/105853/breaking-bad-karma) where she basically defamed Holocaust survivors and called them “villains masquerading as heroes.” As I tried to organize my thoughts, I wondered how many young Jews agreed with Anna’s article. I realized that maybe the problem isn’t one article but that Judaism is not being taught correctly to my generation.
By Tzvi Fishman
If a Jew is thrown into prison and he doesn’t have tefillin, then he can’t perform the mitzvah of putting on tefillin. But the mitzvah of tefillin isn’t cancelled because of this. The very first morning that he gets out of jail, he once again must perform the mitzvah of putting on tefillin
Prayer is always an avenue to God. But in the month of Elul, the last month of the Jewish year, and during the ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, God lends a particularly sympathetic ear.
The Roots of Mikvah, Baptisim and Ghusul are the Same.
Despite the fact that major Poskim spanning several generations declare that the lack of Metzitza B’Peh does not invalidate Bris Milah – some even requiring alternative safer methods - the fact remains that there is a strongly held view mostly among Chasidim that Metzitza B’Peh is an absolute requirement of Bris Milah.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Having set out the broad principles of the covenant, Moses now turns to the details, which extend over many chapters and several parshiyot. The long review of the laws that will govern Israel in its land begin and end with Moses posing a momentous choice.
Over the course of the past week, the Israeli media have been consumed by reports of an impending decision by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak to launch a military strike against Iranian nuclear installations.
During the Yom Kippur War, when the IDF was running out of ammunition in the middle of the fighting, and there was a need for an airlift but Nixon and Kissinger where not quick to respond at first, Wolfson employed every resource he had in the House and in the Senate, enormous resources. He later told me that he even desecrated Shabbat for the sake of his effort, anything to save the nation of Israel.
The massive turnouts around the world celebrating the completion of the twelfth cycle of the Daf Yomi should finally put to rest any remaining claims by leaders of non-Orthodox movements that they represent the wave of the Jewish future.
By Ron Kampeas
WASHINGTON – Anointing Paul Ryan as his running mate, Mitt Romney attached a name and face to his fiscal policy.
By JTA
A world renowned philanthropist, Wolfson helped spread Torah through kollel and outreach programs with many catering specifically to secular Jews in an effort to bring them closer to traditional Judaism.
An Islamic group's request to mark International Al-Quds Day on Aug. 18 has been approved by the Ontario Legislature.
As the lights dimmed on Broadway for 60 seconds last night in memory of Oscar-winning composer Marvin Hamlisch, who died on Monday, I took a moment to reflect on the moment in 1976 when I interviewed Hamlisch.
Focusing on the relations between Israel and the Palestinians turns the conflict inside out. In fact it is driven by the absolute rejection of a Jewish state in the Middle East by all the Muslim nations in the region, which dates back to the beginning of Zionism, before the founding of the state of Israel, before the development of specifically Palestinian nationalism, and long before the 1967 war.
By Moshe Herman
Yishai is joined by Rabbi Yochanan Danziger to discuss American Jews being stuck in the United States, the importance of the Land of Israel to Jewish life, and how Tu B'Av is about marriage rather than love.
By JTA
The Israel Ambulatory Pediatric Association is calling for an end to a controversial circumcision-related rite that is also under fire in New York. Direct oral-genital suction, known as metzitzah b'peh, should not be performed during Jewish ritual circumcision, the IAPA said. The association is calling on Israel’s Health Ministry to require maternity wards and clinics […]
“Israel’s moral standing” is not necessarily enhanced by failing to stand up for its legal rights and by, in effect, selling out the Jewish people.
By JTA
Gold-winning American Jewish gymnast Aly Raisman has accepted an invitation from Israel Diaspora Affairs Minister Yuli Edelstein for her and her family to make their first visit to Israel. Raisman, who performs floor routines to the melody of “Hava Nagilah,” won an individual gold medal in her floor exercise last week and a bronze on […]
By JTA
David Rakoff, a humorist who often wrote about American Jewish culture, has died. Rakoff, 47, died in Manhattan Thursday of cancer, a disease he has battled since he was 22, according to reports. A frequent contributor to National Public Radio's This American Life, Rakoff, who was Montreal-born, embraced his misfortunes with a cheerful negativity. A […]
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Something implicit in the Torah from the very beginning becomes explicit in the book of Devarim. God is the God of love. More than we love Him, He loves us. Here, for instance, is the beginning of this week’s parshah: “If you pay attention to these laws and are careful to follow them, then the Lord your God will keep his covenant of love [et ha-brit ve-et ha-chessed] with you, as he swore to your ancestors. He will love you and bless you and increase your numbers” (Deuteronomy 7:12-13).
By Tzvi Fishman
These days, it’s pretty hard to know who really is Jewish. Let’s take the example of the singles-bar scene in New York. A lot of times a Jewish guy will start talking to girl (call her Debbie) and during the conversation, he’ll ask if she’s Jewish, and she says, “Sure,” when she isn’t Jewish at all. So I have devised an almost foolproof test to determine if a person is really a Jew.
A major sociological characteristic and consequence of modernity is the tendency for people to join together in associations that express a common goal or interest or a shared experience. The United States has been a nation of joiners from day one and perhaps even before independence was declared. Alexis de Tocqueville described this tendency in Democracy in America, the epic prophetic work published a century and three-quarters ago.
By Ron Kampeas
WASHINGTON – Call it the Adelson conundrum: What happens when the guy who acts as if he owns the room really does?
I read an article today. My emotions went up and down as I read it, ending with the thought that the man in the story was about to embark on a journey of a thousand steps and that somewhere along that journey, his grandparents would smile.
Liberal Jews like to talk about Jewish values rather than Jewish interests, because their values are incompatible with Jewish interests-- even as a matter of simple survival. The usual liberal grab bag of values that are represented by the Jewish hand puppets of liberalism, like Wasserman-Schultz, aren't just alien, they threaten the basic survival of the Jewish People.
By Tzvi Fishman
If Moshe were alive today, I’m certain he would prefer living in the Land of Israel rather than living in Brooklyn. What do you think?
By JTA
Norway’s ombudsman for children's rights has proposed that Jews and Muslim replace male circumcision with a symbolic, non-surgical ritual.
Sunday's attack on Jewish worshippers at Joseph's Tomb in Nablus needs to be understood as something more significant than just another unfortunate instance of violence between Jews and Arabs. It is nothing less than a warning of what will happen once Palestinians achieve full sovereignty, as the Obama administration appears to be demanding, over all of the West Bank.
The Decision comes after the girl's mother applied for a court order in November 2011 to prevent her ex-husband from having the girl baptized.
On August 1, the biggest Jewish American event ever took place – the completion of the daily learning of the entire Gemara, which happens once every 7 and a half years, known as Siyum HaShas – filling of 90,000 seats at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium. However, a significantly smaller, but just as intriguing group celebrated the event in skirts, scarves and a spirit of sisterhood in Jerusalem.
By Barry Rubin
A famous Jewish story about that is the tale of Rabbi Zosia who said that he did not expect God to berate him for not having been Moses—who he wasn’t—but for not having been Zosia.To me, that means we must do the best to be ourselves while trying to make ourselves as good as possible.
By Soeren Kern
Israel should be under no illusion that the recent "upgrading" of bilateral relations with the European Union will end European hostility toward the Jewish state. Quite to the contrary; Israel should be expecting an increase in European meddling in its internal affairs.
Hashem gave the Jewish people the special privilege to keep kashrut. Kashrut is a decree that we just do because God commanded us to; we do not understand why we are doing it. When one keeps kashrut, he only eats pure, fit, and halachically permitted food. Even when one eats non-kosher food unintentionally, the non-kosher food becomes a part of a person and has harmful effects. Hashem is making us keep kashrut because He loves us; Hashem only wants the best for us and our health.
By JTA
French Olympic swimmer Fabien Gilot said the Hebrew tattoo on his left arm is a tribute to his late grandmother’s husband, a Jewish survivor of Auschwitz. Gilot, who is not Jewish, said the tattoo is dedicated to his family and honors Max Goldschmidt, who has been a large influence in the Olympic champion’s life. The […]
September 4, 2026 
