(IN)VISIBILITY: Is it good for Jews to be invisible?

As Juneteenth sparks another round of discussion of blacks and the American experience, Chaim Trachtman compares and contrasts the Jewish and Black experiences in America through the lens of Jason Mott’s Hell of a Book.

Blacklists and Bureaucrats, Resistance and The Rabbinate

Fix the Israeli Rabbinate, says Elli Fischer, but first identify the problem.

Climate Change and Prayers for Rain and Dew

By examining the prayers for rain and dew through the lens of meteorology and Rabbi Soloveitchik’s Lonely Man of Faith, Chaim Trachtman presents a unique religious model for thinking about climate change.

Living in an Old Book with Poet Haim Gouri (1923-2018) 

Wendy Zierler interprets a 2015 poem by the late Haim Gouri, reflecting on the challenges of aging, and on the complex and often mournful relationship between the Jewish people, their history, and their literature.

Jung Earth Creationism: Two New York Rabbis Respond to the Scopes Trial

No two Orthodox rabbis think exactly the same way, particularly on the matter of Darwinism in the wake of the Scopes Trial. 

On the Freedom to Pray: A Response to Professor Jonathan Sarna

Jonathan Muskat responds to Jonathan Sarna regarding a proposed change in the text of the Orthodox Jewish prayer for the government.