יום שבת, י״ג חשוון תשפ״זSaturday, October 24, 2026
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By Ben Cohen
Many of the world's illiberal and authoritarian states will become our friends and trading partners and our newfound tolerance of their norms will eventually come into conflict with preserving our own
By Hillel Fendel and Chaim Silberstein / KeepJerusalem.org
Why do the Jewish ties to Jerusalem, Hebron and Nablus (Shechem), all 3 duly purchased, draw the most vociferous objections? Because the enemy knows our holy sites are the key to the entire struggle
By Batya Medad
The decision on Amona should not be in the hands of the Leftist ideology-driven judges of Israel's Supreme Court. The Government and Knesset are supposed to make the laws, not the Judicial branch.
By JNi.Media
Amsalem suggested that the clash over the railroad works over the past two Shabbat days was mostly about politics.
By dvora
Obama talks about terrorist--while never referring to them as Muslims--like they’re misguided youths who need more time with community organizers such as the young Barack Obama.
Israelis don’t see the point of Reform Judaism, maybe because living in Israel provides the sense of Jewish community that many American Jews seek from their congregations
The Yashar Coalition is actively working on the draft of a prenuptial agreement with the goal of obtaining wider acceptance of prenuptials from community rabbis and rosh yeshivas throughout the world
By Barry Rubin
Georgetown was getting Arab money for teaching about the Middle East, but none of it could be used to teach about Israel.
I do not enjoy the second Simchas Torah at all.
Japan the country and the society are still peering into the abyss.
A kashrus agency should be concerned with one thing and one thing only: the kosher status of our food.
I happen to know Gedolei Torah and Roshei Yeshiva who use I-phones and the internet. Are they all doomed?
My problem is with the part of the law that requires 61 signatures in order to submit a no-confidence measure in the Knesset, which effectively neutralizes the no-confidence option.
Rebbetzin, I have seen families where cousins, aunts and uncles are not even invited to one another’s weddings.
In Lebanon there is a rare opportunity to cut off a significant part of one of the most important arms of the Iranian octopus, which comprises Syria and Hezbollah.
Avi Luzon, president of Israel’s football association, said Wednesday that Israel’s hosting of next year’s European under-21 football championship would not pose a security problem.
I wonder how many people are able to understand the language spoken by some of the Magidei Shiur.
By Barry Rubin
I’m amused by those who think that Hamas won the recent conflict.
What is the solution to the constant missile attacks in southern Israel? Those with a solution are the people who warned against signing the Oslo Accords in the first place. These people continue to be sidelined. Clearly, the Oslo advocates have no intention of giving up the profits and perks of the “peace industry” that they have created.
They can say it is only the hooligans and that every society has hooligans. I don't believe them.
We learn in this week’s parshah of Eisav’s sale of his birthright to Yaakov Avinu. There are several questions surrounding the legitimacy of this sale. The Rivash (Teshuvos 328) questions why the sale was valid, since Eisav sold something that did not exist at that time. The halacha is that one may not sell anything that is not in the world at the time of the sale. Since the bechor did not yet exist or take effect at that time, how could the sale have been valid?
Dear Brocha, As I write this letter I am overcome with emotions. Relief, fear, trepidation, elation…the feelings are all jumbled up inside of me. Please allow me to back track. My daughter, who recently turned 20, just left to rehab. After four years of denial, lies, manipulation, anger and chaos she finally admitted she has a problem with alcohol.
By Meir Indor
The Knesset members who “take care of things” for us deserve to be praised, not insulted: people like Uri Ariel and Zevulun Orlev, whose offices are filled day and night with the representatives of organizations and institutions, religious and secular. And they “take care” of these people. It’s true that Ariel and Orlev received popularity ratings of only three percent in a recent poll of the national-religious community, but this isn’t their problem—it’s the respondents’ problem. Orlev and Ariel are too busy for self-promotion.
By Rhona Lewis
Children should be seen and not heard. It was a maxim that I heard many times throughout my childhood and which caused me a fair amount of frustration. When, I often wondered, would I cross that invisible line and move out of the periphery to which I was assigned, into the arena of adulthood and be given the chance to express an opinion that people would listen to?
Romney may say the right things, but will he really be able to affect change? And Obama says… and does… the wrong things, and he has no reason to change. Democrats complain that Romney has no sympathy for the unemployment problem. Here is part II of Douglas Goldstein's radio show.
By dvora
Candies are given as rewards in school. I remember when we got stars and stickers. Why are the yeshivas – our "frum culture" – equating reward with gashmius (materialism), and unwholesome at that! Bad for mind and body. Stop it already!
The American presidency came to an end on October 15, 1992 during a Town Hall debate between President George H.W, Bush, Ross Perot and Bill Clinton. The stage seemed more like a place for Phil Donahue to strut around, biting his lips and dragging out tawdry tales for audience applause than for three presidential candidates to discuss the future of the country.
Modern government is fixated on depth of control over people. It plots to control every aspect of their lives with the goal of creating a completely harmonious whole. Technology has fed the illusion that such control has become more feasible than ever allowing for the rise of truly scientific government. This illusion is destroying the nation-states of modern civilization by overburdening them with massive governments flailing for control and destroying their economies in order to achieve that control.
Douglas Goldstein interviews former Chief Economist for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Harvard professor Ken Rogoff on the American debt crisis.
The American presidency came to an end on October 15, 1992 during a Town Hall debate between Bush I, Ross Perot and Bill Clinton. The stage of the Town Hall seemed more like a place for Phil Donahue or Sally Jesse Raphael to strut around, biting their lips, and dragging out tawdry tales for audience applause, than for three presidential candidates to discuss the future of the country.
“We’ve been living under mortar fire for 18 years. We have to do something,” said the young woman from Sderot on Razi Barkai’s radio show. “What do you want the leaders to do?” asked Barkai. “I don't know, but what they are doing now doesn’t help,” replied the Sderot resident. “Sorry to say this to you, but they also don’t know what to do,” Barkai said. “[It’s] not because they are stupid, but because there is simply no solution.”
The BDS movement reached new lows, apparently in frustration as their attempts to convince others to divest from Israel continue to fail. In Berlin they resorted to disrupting a JNF fundraising concert attended by mostly senior citizens, who they had no problem with physically pushing around.
There are many people who are born frum that have issues that are similar to ba'alei teshuva. We shouldn’'t be singling them out. But then the Rav went right into bashing Modern Orthodoxy Although he didn't label them outright it was clear from the context that the Modern Orthodox Jew is, according to him, the one with the real problem.
Parents often bring children into my office when they are already failing several subjects in school. These students are dejected, frustrated, and often depressed. They believe that because of their past performance, they will never succeed in school. It is not strange that constant effort and subsequent failure have taught them to believe that failure is the only option.
We are all shareholders of the corporation of government. A corporation whose board and CEO we can vote for, but the corporation also has a variety of undemocratic governing mechanisms that make those votes much less meaningful. And the biggest problem is that many of the shareholders are part of blocs that make money from the current unsustainable practices of the corporation and vote in bad boards that rob us blind so they can make more money.
By Barry Rubin
The United States is only at the start of a nasty conflict in Libya which is going to be very anti-American. It is shocking that there is so little recognition of that fact and an apparently sincere belief that all the problems there are due to a You-Tube video. Having a big problem is bad enough; refusing to recognize that one has a bad problem is potentially fatal.
Following the death of Cpl. Netanel Yahalomi in a gunbattle on the Israel-Egypt border on Friday, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Benny Gantz warned that the perimeter would continue to be a security problem for Israel.
Assemblywoman Rhoda Jacobs recently met with the editorial board of The Jewish Press at the newspaper’s New York office. Jacobs, who is the Assembly member for New York State’s 42nd Assembly District, has been in the Assembly since 1979. Her district, which is very ethnically diverse, is primarily made of Flatbush neighborhoods and part of Midwood.
An increasing number of Orthodox Jews are questioning their faith and educators don't know how to respond.
Many people have a problem with the Chick-fil-A chain of chicken restaurants. Universities have asked it to leave campus cafeterias and mayors have tried to ban it from their cities. The Jewish mayor of Chicago summed up his displeasure by saying “Chick-fil-A values are not Chicago values.”
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.
I generally do not respond to patronizing comments on my blog. However, the questions raised by a recent commenter are common ones and deserve answers.
By Barry Rubin
Israel’s “friends” abroad simply can’t seem to get out of their minds the idea that the country faces such terrible threats that it must make big concessions and beg for peace with the Palestinians on just about any terms, or try to appease hostile surrounding countries in order to stave off their wrath.
“But, I want it NOW!” Yankel screamed as his mother lifted his baby sister, Leah, out of her car seat. “Yankel, we can’t get ice cream now. I told you we could have it for dessert. We have to get inside to feed the baby.” “No! I will not go inside! I’m going to sit in the car until you give me ice cream.”
The State of Israel is bickering over nothing. It is like a fight between a seller who has nothing to sell and a buyer who has no intention of buying.
By Barry Rubin
When Andrew McCarthy drew a parallel between the treatment of State Department official (and Soviet spy) Alger Hiss in the 1940s and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s aide Huma Abedin Weiner today it reminded me of an interesting discovery from my own research, as documented in my history of the State Department, Secrets of State.
One after the other, people associated with the Gush Katif expulsion are going down. What's the connection?
Americans, however, have been reluctant to accept the notion that honor violence occurs on US soil, just as – until recently – they insisted that the radicalization of Muslims in Europe was not a problem that could confront Americans. But with events such as Nidal Malik Hassan's 2009 attack at Fort Hood we've learned otherwise: radical Islam is alive and well in these United States and with it, religious and culturally-based violence against women.
Demographics is destiny. The left is reshaping countries to match its demographic targets. It is turning nations into one great gerrymandered district composed of populations that are more likely to support it. It is doing this using immigration, economics, social policy and every tool at its disposal. And if conservatives don't start understanding the demographic game of thrones, then they will lose the war.
Baseless Hatred: What It Is and What You Can Do About It, a new book by Dr. Rene Levy, tackles a problem that has plagued the Jewish people from very early on in their history; the destructive aspects of which have been responsible for some of their greatest historical calamities and continue to threaten the unity of the Jewish people today.
It’s human nature to hide our heads in the sand. That may be because we are mostly optimistic. We believe everything will be all right even when we know we are taking a chance.
Jordan has managed until now to remain untouched by these problems, and King Abdullah II knew how to navigate matters of the kingdom in a way that the waves of the revolution washing over the rest of the Arab world did not yet wash over his kingdom. But in the past few weeks - mainly since the victory of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco - a different sort of problem is now becoming apparent: the problem of radical political Islam.
Legislation is being used to force a situation onto a significantly large minority sector that disagrees with the decision. Will it once again end in disaster for everyone?
Our forefathers passed on to us a Bill of Rights, and we shall pass on to our descendants a Bill. A tremendous Bill which can be unrolled from the mountains to the prairies to the oceans white with foam... and all the way across the ocean to China.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Adaptive leadership is called for when the world is changing, circumstances are no longer what they were, and what once worked works no more. There is no quick fix, no pill, no simple following of instructions. We have to change. At a certain point, Moses had to help the Israelites change, to exercise responsibility, to learn to do things for themselves while trusting in God instead of relying on God to do things for them.
The obesity epidemic is a convoluted way of saying that the problem with government health care is the people. But that's not the problem. Obesity may not be healthy, but if we ban sodas and force everyone to exercise in the yard before work, the numbers still won't balance. Because the real problem with government health care is government.
Dear Dr. Yael: I now see why so many children are insecure. I have been a day-care provider for many years. When parents initially consider day care they want a small group so their children will not be neglected. But problems arise when their children turn two, and nursery or playgroup becomes an option. All of a sudden a group of 20-25 children is not a problem because it is much cheaper. I refer to two-two and a half year olds, whose parents feel that they need to exclusively be with children their own age.
Turkey, no doubt, is an important regional power, and Israel must weigh its steps carefully when dealing with it, because of the changes that are occurring in the region and in light of the unsolved difficulties with Turkey – the flotilla two years ago and the gas in the future.
As we remember Jerusalem Day, it is important to remember that the city is united and free because diplomacy failed. Israel's greatest triumph happened only because diplomacy proved hopeless in deterring Muslim genocidal ambitions. Had Israel succumbed to international pressure and had Nasser been as subtle as Sadat, then the Six Day War would have looked like the Yom Kippur War with 1948 borders - and Israel very likely would not exist today.
By Batya Jacobs
Rav Ezriel Tauber says that a husband and wife are like two rough diamonds. A rough diamond can become a priceless, pure jewel, but only if another diamond is used to remove the impurities. So HaKadosh Boruch Hu puts together two perfectly matched rough diamonds. He makes sure that they have their little differences. The friction from these differences scrapes away at their impurities so they gradually become multi-faceted, pure, shining jewels.
The problem with turning the other cheek is: it doesn’t work. Not with bullies. Not even with Catholic school bullies. Because bullies don’t consult the “Good Book” before they do bad things.
The Knesset factions are pursuing legislation that will institute an equal draft into the IDF – but something is fishy. The New Israel Fund’s propaganda has made inroads, and it looks like the upcoming elections will focus on haredi-bashing.
Speaking at the annual convention of the Conservative movement's Rabbinical Assembly in Atlanta on Tuesday, Vice President Joe Biden made the case that Obama's strategies regarding the Iranian nuclear program have worked, but said the decision to strike must be Israel's. "I would not contract out my security to anybody, even a loyal, loyal, loyal friend like the United States," Biden said.
That’s right. I’m calling out the Dalai Lama. And here’s my problem with His Holiness in particular, and with Buddhists in general – and it also happens to be one of the first things that drew me to Judaism: Jews understand evil. Buddhists do not.
By Jason Maoz
Mike Wallace died earlier this month at age 93, and while some may find it preferable to focus on the positive when speaking or writing about an individual on the occasion his passing, the Monitor had little good to say about Wallace while he was living, so why start now?
Yes, beauty plays a role in courtship. But when we allow it to rule, then we – not beauty – become our daughters’ tyrants. We are fearful our daughters will remain single for too long, and so we grasp at straws – thin, brittle, unstable straws. But “extreme makeovers” and intensifying their already ample body-image anxieties are not the answer.
Whether you are staying home for Pesach or going away, it is nice to have something new to enhance this special Yom Tov. With rhinestone monograms now so readily available you can turn many household items from ordinary to extraordinary.
Don't worry, Yitta, I'm not going to crucify you, as you feared. I actually agreed with the gist of your article, which was obviously heartfelt and well-intended. I just want to point out where you crossed a line...
By Barry Rubin
In the past, the mass media could be expected to present a debate on how to interpret this event but now all too often they give a monopoly to the whitewashers and the apologists.
Like other chassidic dynasties, Bobov was not immune to one day experiencing a schism. When Rabbi Naftali Zvi Halberstam, the fourth Bobover Rebbe, died in 2005, a dispute arose over who would succeed him. Some chassidim sought to appoint his younger half-brother, Rabbi Ben Zion Aryeh Leibish Halberstam, as the next rebbe; and others sought out the fourth rebbe’s sons-in-law: Rabbi Mordechai Dovid Unger as the rebbe, and Rabbi Yehoshua Rubin as the Bobov rav (serving as head of the bet din and as the posek).
It was Yehudah’s third birthday party. Instead of calmly interacting with his guests, he either ignored them or bossed them around with his limited vocabulary of ten words. He ran around nonstop and elbowed every person in his path. Then, his mother, Shoshana, decided he needed some time to himself so she asked him to play quietly in the den for a few minutes.
For most physicians specializing in the treatment of infertility, the subject of sexuality - and especially the "how to’s" of sex - are rarely a subject of concern.
Since its establishment, the Kingdom of Jordan has suffered from a split personality between two identities, the Jordanian and the Palestinian, that are intertwined like a pair of Siamese twins who hate one another, but cannot part from each other. The source of the problem is the fact that most of the citizens of the Hashemite Jordanian monarchy define themselves as "Palestinians", but their state is "Jordanian". So how should they relate to it - as their country or as a foreign interloper?
We can be justly proud of all the media coverage revolving around a group of Orthodox Jewish students at Houston’s Beren Academy who had decided not to participate in a prestigious basketball competition if it conflicted with the requirements of their faith.
Whether or not Israel builds another porch in Jerusalem or for that matter entire new communities beyond the Green Line has no impact on the resolution of the problems in Egypt, Syria and the rest of the states on the neighborhood.
If certain elements of the charedi community have issues with the way women dress, let them figure out a way to alleviate their obvious spiritual and mental distress in a way that does not encroach on other people’s rights. It's their problem - they need to resolve it, instead of demanding that a huge segment of society change their lives and the way they do things just to accommodate them.
By Maury Litwak
One thing that I consistently encounter when discussing affordable Jewish education is frustration and blame. The frustration comes from parents and others intimately involved in Jewish education.
“And He does kindness to thousands of generations, to those who He loves and those who guard His mitzvos.” – Shemos 20:6 In the Aseres Ha’Dibros we are told Hashem pays back the wicked for four generations and the righteous for two thousand generations. Rashi explains the ratio of two thousand to four comes out […]
Director-general of Jewish Leadership faction claims that Likud purposely released inaccurate results.
Gabi Ashkenazi says that Israel must 'keep a viable military option on the table.'
Some readers may wonder why I’ve devoted so many recent columns to this subject. The answer is that finding one’s shidduch has become a problem that has reached crisis proportions in the Jewish world. And despite all the efforts of individuals and community leaders, the crisis shows no signs of abating.
By Sam Ser
Tibi's rhyming rebuke included a not-so-veiled derogatory reference to fellow MK’s mother
Dear Dr. Yael: As a husband and longtime admirer of your column, I respectfully submit that your answer to A Sleep-Deprived Wife (The Magazine, 12-23-2011) missed the mark. Your response begins as follows:
Could it be she wished to tell you that nowadays many men can be superficial in their search for a life partner, looking for a “glamour girl” rather than an aishes chayil? Could it be she tried to tell you it would be wise for you to be more flexible, more open-minded, and not lock yourself into limiting your options to just a certain “type”?
October 23, 2026 
