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As we mark the 40th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem, there is no question, as Rabbi Grossman rightly points out, that it is anything but a unified city. This truth is particularly demoralizing following the dizzying sense of hope and possibility that followed Israel’s tremendous victory against the amassed armies of three hostile neighboring…

Forty years after the reunification of Jerusalem, the United States has still yet to move its embassy from Tel-Aviv. Of the 184 countries that the United States has embassies in, the only country where a U.S. embassy is not located in the country’s designated capital is Israel. In 1995 Congress overwhelmingly passed the Jerusalem Embassy…

As we mark the 40th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem, there is no question, as Rabbi Grossman rightly points out, that it is anything but a unified city. This truth is particularly demoralizing following the dizzying sense of hope and possibility that followed Israel

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem under Jewish rule. Jerusalem in Hebrew (ir hashalem) means City of Peace. Unfortunately, that is not a descriptive phrase but a prophetic one: When Jerusalem is at peace, then we know the world is at peace. Unfortunately, Jerusalem has seldom been a city of…

Rabbi Waxman claims I asserted that, “The incidence of teenage pregnancy and AIDS in the Jewish community is not a problem that needs to be taken seriously.” That’s not what I meant. What I did say was: “Relative to America at-large there is no teenage pregnancy or AIDS problem in the Jewish community let alone…

I’m disturbed by Rabbi Stern’s claim that the incidence of teenage pregnancy and AIDS in the Jewish community is not a problem that needs to be taken seriously. Similar claims were once made about alcoholism and domestic violence, driving the problems underground, preventing education, and silencing the victims. It has already been more than a…

I don’t have the same problem Rabbi Waxman does with the Orthodox Union’s recent effort to promote abstinence among its young people. The OU’s site does seem to include accurate information, at least to my medically untrained eye, particularly by including a link to the Food and Drug Administration’s web site that in turn includes…

Regular readers of VT may have noticed my absence from the blog the past couple of weeks – but it has been for the most wonderful of reasons: my wife and I have been extremely busy as we have welcomed our new son, Adir Hanan, into the world. He is a complete miracle and has…

Kol ha kavod to Rabbi Stern on drawing the line between the coercive power of the Israeli Rabbinate and their encroachment on the American Orthodox Rabbinate’s authority over American conversions. However, I wonder if Rabbi Stern would be willing to go so far as to defend the right of those who receive non-Orthodox conversions here…

The issue of intermarriage and conversion has most recently been reawakened by the Israeli Chief Rabbinate’s attempt to take over the full conversion process of the American Orthodox Rabbinate. This difference between American Jewry and the Israeli Chief Rabbinate comes through in the two stories of Shavuot, the stories of choice and coercion. On Shavuot,…
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