Category Archives: Talmud

Joshua Angrist, part of a trio that won the economics Nobel Prize on Monday, has used,in much of his research on natural experiments, the Israeli education systems reliance on a theory by Maimonides.

Angrist and Guido W. Imbens won their half of the award (the other half went to David Card) for working out the methodological issues that allow economists to draw solid conclusions about cause and effect even when they cannot carry out studies according to strict scientific methods.

The Nobel committee said the three shared the prize for providing new insights about the labor market and for showing what conclusions about cause and effect can be drawn from natural experiments.

But much of Angrists work has been based on his research in Israel, and in particular on education and labor.

Last year, Angrist told the Econ Focus publication by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond how he began to work on natural experiments, the area in which he eventually won the Nobel Prize, with research focused on the Israeli education system, which has maximum classroom sizes based on a theory by 12th-century Jewish scholar Maimonides.

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Angrist said that the research was initially born of the fact that he was living in Israel at the time.

One thing I learned is that empiricists should work on stuff thats nearby, he said. Theres a temptation to just mimic whatever the Americans and British are doing. I think a better strategy is to say, Well, whats special and interesting about where I am?'

Students arrive to the classroom on the first day of the new academic year, at Orot Etzion School in the West Bank settlement of Efrat, September 1, 2021. (Gershon Elinson/Flash90)

It turned out that the Israeli school system had a lot of interesting things going on. One was that they had a rule about class size that can actually be dated back to the Talmud, Angrist said, explaining that Maimonides had determined that the size of a group of students must be capped at 40.

Even though the details of the rule have changed, we call it Maimonides Rule, because the biblical sage and scholar Moses Maimonides had said in the 13th century that thats what youre supposed to do, Angrist said. If youre in a grade cohort of 41, theyll split your class because youre over the cap of 40; if youre in a cohort of 39, youll stay lumped. So you get a nice natural experiment there.

Angrist said that he and colleagues continued to use the Israeli education system when they repeated the research a number of years later using a larger sample size, and came up with different findings.

Maimonides (Wikimedia commons)

In the newer, much larger sample, theres not much relationship, basically none, between class size and achievement. I cant say that we actually figured out why it changed. Overall, classes have gotten smaller in Israel; maybe were into a zone where it doesnt matter much anymore, he said.

Angrist has also written several papers about education and labor conditions in Gaza and the West Bank and in 2001 published a paper on the impact of teacher training in Jerusalems public schools.

He also served as a member of Israels Finance Ministry Working Group on Israeli-Palestinian Labor Market Relations in 1994.

Shortly after graduating from Oberlin College in Ohio, Angrist served as a paratrooper in the Israel Defense Forces. He later taught at Jerusalems Hebrew University.

Agencies contributed to this report.

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Maimonides in the classroom: The research that led Angrist to the Nobel - The Times of Israel

Drawn to biology from childhood, Rabbi Tendler, while studying at Yeshiva, simultaneously took evening courses at New York University. There he received a bachelors degree in biology and then a masters degree in the subject before eventually earning the doctorate at Columbia.

Yeshiva hired him as a biology instructor in 1952, and within a few years he was appointed assistant dean in charge of student affairs. He was later named a rosh yeshiva at the seminary, a title given to the schools leading teachers and one he held at his death. He lectured from his hospital bed by Zoom until five months ago, his son Mordecai said.

Years ago as a student, Rabbi Tendler was studying at a local library when he was approached by Shifra Feinstein, Rabbi Feinsteins daughter, who asked him a chemistry question. They went on to marry and have eight children, moving to Monsey in 1960. There he was named rabbi of the Community Synagogue.

Mrs. Tendler died in 2007. Besides Mordecai, he is survived by three daughters, Rivka Rappaport, dean of an Israeli high school, Sara Oren, a nurse at Hadassah Medical Center in Israel, and Ruth Fried, chair of science at Yeshiva University High School for Girls in Holliswood, Queens; four other sons, Yacov, an internist, Aron, a rabbi in Baltimore, Hillel, a Baltimore lawyer, and Eli Don, a lawyer on Long Island; a brother, Sholom, dean of a yeshiva in Los Angeles; more than 200 grandchildren and great-grandchildren; and four great-great grandchildren.

In a tribute he wrote for the online magazine Tradition, Dr. Edward Reichman, a professor of emergency medicine at Einstein and a former student of Rabbi Tendler, said that Rabbi Tendler had taught generations of observant medical students to think about the implications of Jewish ethics in their training and that he had forever changed the way the Jewish world analyzes and integrates the field of medicine through the lens of Torah.

It is no exaggeration, he added, to say that Rabbi Tendlers name was in the Rolodex (or, today, smartphone) of every religious Jewish physician.

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Moshe Tendler, Authority on Jewish Medical Ethics, Dies at 95 - The New York Times

In Parshat Lech Lecha (Breisheet 13:17), Avraham is told:

Rise, walk (hithalech) the land through its length and breadth, for to you I will give it.

This reminds us of Yishayahu 42:5 where we read:

Thus says God the Lord, He that created the heavens, and stretched them out; He that spread forth the earth, and that which comes out of it; He that gives breath to the people upon it and a spirit to those who walk within it (laholchim bah).

The Talmud, Ketubot 111a explains the words and a spirit to those who walk within it: Rabbi Yirmiya bar Abba said in the name of Rabbi Yochanan, Whoever walks four amot (cubits) in Eretz Yisrael is assured of a portion in the World to Come.

Maharit (Tshuvot Maharit II, Yoreh Deah 28) suggests that this may even apply to a tourist who has no intention of settling in the Land of Israel. Maharit declares that there is no known mitzvah associated with visiting the Land of Israel, yet one still receives merit. He even suggests that one who was not able to fulfill the mitzvah of settling the Land of Israel when they were alive still receives merit for being buried there.

Receiving merit is a step in the right direction and that is why it is so wonderful to see so many tourists visiting Israel on a regular year. However, with numerous travel restrictions in place due to Covid, many people who would have wanted to travel to Israel dont have that opportunity.

Unfortunately, during these difficult times, there are those who can only get in to Israel to bury a loved one.

May we merit to have tourists safely come back to walk the Land of Israel and may Jews continue to make aliya and fully observe the mitzvah of Yishuv Ertetz Yisrael, the Settlement of the Land of Israel.

Sharona holds a BA in Judaic Studies from Stern College and an MS in Jewish Education from Azrieli Graduate School, Yeshiva University. Sharona was the first Congregational Intern and Madricha Ruchanit at the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, NY. After making aliya in 2004, Sharona founded Torat Reva Yerushalayim, a non profit organization based in Jerusalem which provides Torah study groups for students of all ages and backgrounds.

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Our Reward for Settling the Land | Sharona Margolin Halickman | The Blogs - The Times of Israel

Freshly baked challah has been carefully wrapped in individual paper packages and arranged in a wicker basket by the entrance into the Jewish Community of Florence. While the copper dome of the Synagogue stands out on the citys skyline, the community remains relatively little known locally and yet it offers a lifelong commitment to Jewish heritage.

We want to encourage people to come and study Jewish culture with us.

Menorahs greet members and visitors in the cosy reception area where noticeboards provide news about the communitys services, from young groups to Talmud Torah learning. Copies of bimonthly magazine Toscana Ebraica top a table and sporting trophies won by community members line a shelf by the entrance into Rabbi Gadi Pipernos well-appointed office.

Here in via Farini, 15 or so preschool children learn in light-filled classrooms with the Hebrew alphabet posted above the windows. Its hard to imagine a more idyllic place to go to school when you observe the toys and slides beside the 19th-century Moorish-style temple. Theres the sukkah, a temporary hut for eating during the week of Sukkot (last year, the structure stayed up longer due to the pandemic), and even an organic vegetable garden for kids to try gardening, while a reminder of the circle of life is omnipresent as the communitys 42-bed nursing home lies through a gate beyond the playground. As with all things living, theres no such thing as a status quo: in recent months, a number of families from Canada, the United States and Israel have joined the community, which comprises just under 1,000 members, bringing growth, renewed vigour and an international feel.

Were the only school that walks around the city to visit theatres, such as nearby Teatro Verdi and museums, like Palazzo Strozzi, Palazzo Vecchio and the Uffizi, explains teacher Sabina Sadun as the children collect autumn leaves in the walled garden and generously share them with us. The Birth of Venus inspired a longer study into flowers and the sea based on slow observation.

Over on the other side of the Synagogue, older children kick a ball around a small football pitch, a short distance from the recently added miqveh, a bathing house for ritual purification. Downstairs in a large room used for special occasions, film projections and everyday life, the children are munching lasagne made in the on-site kitchen.

Upstairs, we gaze at the collections of books and documents making up the communitys extensive library, with sections dedicated to Judaism in Tuscany and wider Italy, before heading up several flights of steps into the archive. The very history of the Jewish Community of Florence is contained in these light blue, metal-trimmed files that stand in two apartment rooms from floor to ceiling. The Synagogues construction, financial ledgers, births and deaths: every single detail is stated. Thats not all: books that were damaged during the 1966 flood have been restored in Rome and are slowly returning to Florence, in need of cataloguing and storage.

Our aim is to expand the scope of our library and archive, hosting people and attracting scholars, comments Enrico Fink, president of the Jewish Community of Florence. We want to encourage people to come and study Jewish culture with us.

Dialogues is the title of the European Day of Jewish Culture, which will be celebrated in Tuscany with an introductory concert aired from Sienas Teatro dei Rinnovati with a live audience on October 9 at 9.15am. Click here for more details.

On October 10, a full day of events will take place at the Jewish Community in Florence (via Farini 4), with talks, food, book stands and exhibitions from 11am to 7pm. A Stolperstein will be laid in memory of Rabbi Nathan Cassuto in the morning. The program will be posted on http://www.firenzebraica.it.

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The Jewish Community of Florence: from kindergarten to care home - The Florentine

Avshalom Davidesko, from the Israel's Antiquities Authority, examines a jar in a massive ancient winemaking complex dating back some 1,500 years in Yavne, south of Tel Aviv, Israel. Tsafrir Abayov/AP hide caption

Avshalom Davidesko, from the Israel's Antiquities Authority, examines a jar in a massive ancient winemaking complex dating back some 1,500 years in Yavne, south of Tel Aviv, Israel.

Near a soccer pitch and a suburban neighborhood in central Israel, archaeologists say they discovered the world's largest known Byzantine-era winery.

The winery, dating back 1,500 years, is believed to have produced one of the finest white wines of the Mediterranean at the time. It was widely praised in Byzantine-era literature and known as vinum Gazetum or Gaza wine because it was exported from the ancient port city near modern-day Gaza.

Archeologists found a large complex of five winepresses, four large warehouses where the wine was aged, kilns where the clay wine jugs were fired, and tens of thousands of broken pieces of jugs.

They estimate the winery produced between two to three million liters of wine a year.

"The proportions here are incredible," said Elie Haddad, an Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologist who co-directed the two-year dig on the outskirts of Yavne, south of Tel Aviv. Archaeologists were called in to survey the area before an overpass is built there.

Each winepress found covers an area of about 2,400 square feet. Around the treading floor, where grapes were crushed by foot, were compartments for fermenting the wine and large octagonal vats that collected the wine.

The dig also unearthed even more ancient wine presses about 2,300 years old, pointing to a longstanding tradition of winemaking in the area. The Talmud speaks of the "vineyard of Yavne" where Jewish religious sages gathered after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.

The ancient cosmopolitan city of Yavne was home to a patchwork of Jews, Samaritans, Christians and others. Who operated the winery is unknown, but archaeologists say the large, intricate conch-shell decorations suggest the owners were wealthy.

The archaeologists even found several, completely intact, slender clay amphorae where the wine was aged and stored for export.

The same kind of long clay jugs have also been discovered in the Gaza Strip, where they are displayed in a museum testifying to a time when Gaza was not a blockaded area of conflict but rather a bustling portal to the ancient world.

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1,500-year-old winery discovered in Israel - NPR

On Sept. 8, 2021, the United States Supreme Court took the unusual step of staying Texas execution of John Ramirez, a convicted murderer. The question the court has decided to consider is a narrow one. Notably, the question is not whether the execution should take place.

Instead, the only question is whether Texas may constitutionally deny Ramirezs plea that his pastor, a Baptist minister, pray out loud and place his hands on Ramirez at the moment of execution. That question may be narrow, but it speaks broadly to our continued embrace of our national sin of capital punishment, and it sheds a not very flattering light on white evangelicals who claim to worship a crucified Christ, yet who disproportionately support the states right to kill without mercy.

While arguments rage in certain circles about the moral and ethical viability of the death penalty, there can be no reasonable debate on one crucial point: As a nation, we have murdered scores of wholly innocent people, all under the sanction of the law and in the name of justice. In this regard, the facts simply do not lie, no matter how much capital punishment proponents wish that they would.

As a nation, we have murdered scores of wholly innocent people, all under the sanction of the law and in the name of justice.

As tabulated by the Death Penalty Information Center, 185 Death Row inmates have been exonerated prior to their scheduled execution, and it bears stressing that such exonerations were not, in all cases, simply a question of finding an existence of reasonable doubt. Instead, in at least 28 known cases, later-tested DNA evidence has conclusively eliminated the man convicted and sentenced to death as the perpetrator of the crime. The question is not whether we have killed innocent death row inmates. The only question is how many.

A shameful example is offered by the case of Claude Jones, who was executed in Texas in 2000 for the 1989 killing of a liquor store clerk. He had been tied to the scene of the crime by a single hair a hair that the prosecutors convinced the jury had come from Jones. It hadnt. While DNA tests were sought as a part of a last-minute stay request, that stay was denied by then-Gov. George Bush. As a result, such tests were not performed until 2010, a decade after Jones was killed by the state of Texas. They conclusively proved that the hair did not come from Jones but was, instead, from the victim. Jones had not killed an innocent man. Texas had.

The injustices inherent in the death penalty are accentuated by a very ugly truth. Often, the determinative factor in a jurys choice between life and death turns more on the color of the accused persons skin than on any other single factor. That chilling truth has been repeatedly demonstrated, perhaps nowhere more clearly than in a pair of studies by University of Iowa Professor David Baldus in the 1980s and 1990s, who determined that, in America, Black persons are 38% more likely to be sentenced to death based solely on their race.

Combined with the fact of the death penaltys known error rate, this means that it is exceedingly likely that we have, as a nation, executed dozens if not hundreds of innocent persons solely for the crime of being Black. This horrifying truth perhaps explains the wide gap in white and Black Christian views on the death penalty, with one 2014 study finding 59% support for capital punishment among white evangelicals but only 25% support among Black Protestants. The fact that white evangelicals do not share their Black brothers and sisters concern for the sanctity of Black lives is simply one of the many sickening truths laid bare by the death penalty.

Interestingly, while pro-death-penalty Christians often avoid Jesus altogether and resort, instead, to a full-throated endorsement of the eye for an eye passages of Mosaic law to justify their position, they do so without realizing that the travesty of justice embodied by the death penalty in todays American legal system bears no resemblance whatsoever to its Old Testament ancestor. Under that system, no execution could be had absent two direct eyewitnesses to the crime itself. (See Numbers 35:30 and Deuteronomy 12:6). The extent to which this requirement was to be rigorously enforced is reflected in the following example provided by the Talmud:

Even if the witnesses saw (the assailant) chasing (the victim), gave him warning, and then lost sight of him, or they followed him into a ruin and found the victim writhing, while the sword dripping with blood was in the hands of the slayer, the court does not condemn the accused to death, since the witnesses did not see him at the time of the slaying.

Leaving aside for a moment the question of whether the state is ever morally or ethically entitled to kill, its clear that our modern-day thirst for vengeance is given much freer rein than we see authorized by the Old Testament. Who needs an eyewitness, much less two, when a death penalty conviction can literally rest on a single hair that may, or may not, be from the accused?

Even the most cartoonishly drawn image of a wrathful God of Old Testament justice and vengeance cannot hold a candle to the cavalier way in which we are willing to kill the accused.

No. Even the most cartoonishly drawn image of a wrathful God of Old Testament justice and vengeance cannot hold a candle to the cavalier way in which we are willing to kill the accused. Quite the contrary, we hear God solemnly swear in Ezekiel 33:11, As surely as I live, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. I wonder how many Bible-believing white evangelicals who support the death penalty today despite all of its flaws would lend their amen to that statement.

Credible research shows that, rather than deterring murder, capital punishment tends to have a brutalizing effect on society, desensitizing us to the sacred value of life and actually increasing the homicide rate, at least in the immediate aftermath of an execution.

Simply by way of a single notable example, in the October 1980 edition of the journal Crime and Delinquency, Northeastern University researchers W.J. Bowers and G.L Pierce published the results of their meticulous study tracking homicide rates in comparison to executions in New York from the early 1900s through the mid-1960s. These researchers found no deterrent effect from the death penalty whatsoever, and, in fact, found a brief uptick in homicide rates immediately following executions, amounting to on average between two and three excess murders correlating to each of the executions during the time period studied.

It is a damnable lie that our government, or any other government, can point the way toward a greater respect for the sanctity of human life with blood-soaked hands.

In short, it is a damnable lie that our government, or any other government, can point the way toward a greater respect for the sanctity of human life with blood-soaked hands.

It would be a gross understatement to say the churchs past views on the death penalty have been vacillating and inconsistent but with the notable exception of Americas white evangelicals its present voice is now being heard with growing clarity and insistency. By way of example, Pope Francis, in his encyclical Tutti Fratelli, sought to settle the question once and for all, unequivocally declaring the death penalty inadmissible in all cases, and committing the Catholic Church to seeking its abolition worldwide.

Of note, Pope Francis call for the death of the death penalty did not rest on the ugly truth that some of the executed may be innocent. Rather, even as to persons unequivocally guilty of the crimes for which they have been convicted, Pope Francis echoed the caution of Saint Augustine that we must not, as a society, allow their crimes to feed a desire for vengeance, that we must desire instead to heal the wounds which those deeds have inflicted on their souls.

At its very heart, Pope Francis unwavering opposition to the death penalty is rooted in his recognition that not even the vilest murderer can, by his crime, shed himself of the dignity of being made in Gods own image or separate himself from the love of Christ.

Or to quote Karl Barth, The death penalty has been abolished on earth by the execution of Jesus Christ on Golgotha. The atonement of the Son of God has annihilated it completely; nothing speaks for it, everything speaks against it.

For Barth, and an increasing number of Christians worldwide, there is simply no room for lynch mobs or executioners at the feet of a Christ who rejected the chance to condemn the guilty (John 8:11) and who spoke words of healing, mercy, grace and life to both the just and the unjust, and even to those agents of the state who had unjustly nailed him to the Cross.

Ending where we started with John Ramirez, we are struck in the face with the ugly truth of the incompatibility of the death penalty and our Christian faith. Why would Texas be so desperate to deny a convicted murderer the spiritual consolation of touch or of prayer by a trusted minister at the moment of execution? Because the death penalty demands, for its supposed legitimization, the utter dehumanization of the executed criminal. It needs the fiction that we are putting down a mad dog. An animal. A monster. It simply cannot bear any evidence of the truth that, with every execution, we are killing a human being.A child of God, made and loved by God with a love greater than any sin or crime. A fellow Christian, forgiven through the shedding of the same blood of Christ shed to forgive you and me, yet still in need of our help to find wholeness and healing from the damage inflicted upon himself by his own crime.

It is jarring for us to hear a call to view a killer as a victim to be rehabilitated and saved because, deep down, we unlike God do, in fact, take pleasure in the death of the wicked and have no desire whatsoever to help them turn from their ways and live. It is shocking because we have allowed the merciless retribution demanded by Fox News to all but extinguish the unmerited love commanded by Christ.

John Ramirez is not alone in his need for prayer and forgiveness in the shadow of the gallows. I pray that our eyes are opened more fully to our own sin and that we, as a nation, grasp hold of life not death, love not hate, faith not fear. I pray that we finally put to death the death penalty that is slowly but surely killing us as well as the accused.

Chris Conleyis an attorney and graduate of the University of Georgia and of the Emory University School of Law.He and his wife, Mary, live in Athens, Ga., where both are members and deacons at First Baptist Church. They have one son, Aaron, who also is an attorney, and a miniature schnauzer, Oso, whose career path remains uncertain.

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The death penalty is dying a slow death; its time we pull the plug| Analysis by Stephen Reeves

After 23 years in prison, Curtis Flowers is free | Opinion by Alan Bean

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A prayer for the death of the death penalty Baptist News Global - Baptist News Global

Of all the challenges facing the Jewish community in our time, the greatest might be the declining Jewish birth rate occasioned by delayed marriage on the part of Jewish singles. By this I dont only mean in the less observant Jewish community, where the situation is truly dire, but rather even in the Orthodox Jewish community, which normally boasts a very high birth rate.

On Simchat Torah I went to Crown Heights where I spoke at several shuls that boast large numbers of Chabad Jewish singles. Foremost among them was Chevra Ahavas Yisroel, run by Folly Tessler, and the Townhouse community run by Yankee Pearson. Both had hundreds of people.

It was an eye opener to see a Chabad singles scene. In the Chabad community, we were all raised to have strict segregation between men and women and matches were made by matchmakers. When I was in Yeshiva, the thought of going to events with Chabad girls was a non-starter.

But heres the problem. In a community that is now absolutely colossal and global, with tens of thousands of young people who are the products, thank God, of that high birth rate, how can one expect matchmakersmost of whom are volunteers and work on commissions received for successful matchesto ever cope with the numbers?

In addition, matchmaking, in the words of a friend of mine, is a rigged system. It highlights qualities like pedigree, money, and beauty, which do not accord with Jewish values. It would be nice if we could consistently rely on holy attributes like character, refinement and goodness coming to the fore in arranged dating. Unfortunately, we cant. The shidduchsystem, which I mostly believe in, has proven itself to be a hit or miss affair. It works for some. It doesnt work for many.

On Simchat Torah night I spoke to more than 500 Chabad singles. It was amazing. I spoke of the three kinds of love. The first and lowest is exploitative love. Its where you love someone in a transactional way where person gets something from the other. In dating this represents people who marry based on similar education background and future earning power. The second kind of love is selfless yet selfish at the same time. You want to give to the other but you enjoy seeing how your love them positively and how they appreciate you. But the highest form of love is utterly altruistic. Its where you love someone and receive nothing in return. You simply celebrate the fact that the other person is, which is why, on Simchat Torah, we dance with a closed Torah. We are not celebrating the fact that the Torah enriches us intellectually or spiritually. We are simply celebrating the fact that the Torah is.

In dating, it represents our desire to devote ourselves to a soul-mate unconditionally and watch them flourish and prosper.

I admit that an Orthodox singles scene can also spill over into what sometimes looks like a secular singles scene, where outward attractiveness can get more attention than qualities that are more internal or subtle. Still, religious singles have to meet and the Orthodox Jewish community is not addressing the scale of the problem.

Still, religious singles have to meet and the Orthodox Jewish community is not addressing the scale of the problem.

The secular Jewish community has mostly addressed it through online dating, and many Orthodox singles have also gotten engaged through online apps. But while they are effective in allowing people from all over the world to meet, they present their own problems. The first is the massive scale and the variety of people you can find online. Strange as it may sound, too many choices can actually make it much harder to choose. Online dating can become its own addiction. Then there is the fact that physical attraction is going to be the most highlighted of all qualities since online dating is a visual medium.

This brings us back to the original problem.

How do we get Jewish singles to date, get serious and connect through marriage?

Judaism is not a proselytizing faith. Our numbers are dependent entirely on our birth rate.

In the same way that an organization was created to get young Jews to visit Israel (Birthright), and in the same way that there is an organization that promotes Israel in Congress (AIPAC), and in the same way there is an organization to combat antisemitism (the ADL), we likewise need a Jewish organization that is dedicated exclusively to Jewish marriage. It seems incredible that it doesnt yet exist. Think about how every priority of the Jewish community is addressed with massive numbers of organizations, like those fighting antisemitism. Yet there isnt one national organization designed to promote Jewish marriage, even though the absence of marriage represents an existential threat to the Jewish future.

Yes, I get it. Some, like Birthright, are hoping that Jewish singles will meet and marry when they go on trips to Israel. But its not the same thing. We need an organizationdedicatedto getting people to meet and marry.

I can envision a national organization that either arranges or provides funding for regular events around the country that will bring Jewish singles together, with special emphasis on those who wish to date not just casually but also to marry. No doubt levels of observance will factor into whom attends which events. But the general idea will be Jewish men and women who want to marry other Jewish individuals and build Jewish families.

I can envision a national organization that either arranges or provides funding for regular events around the country that will bring Jewish singles together, with special emphasis on those who wish to date not just casually but also to marry.

In last weeks Torah reading, Genesis, God Himself brings Adam and Eve together, serving as historys first matchmaker. The Talmud says that God found it harder to make that match than He did to split the Red Sea.

When I was studying to be a Rabbi in Yeshiva I found that statement incredulous. How hard is it to have men and women meet and marry? Whats the big deal?

But once I became the father of nine children and, more importantly, once I started writing books on sex and marriage and people came to me for dating advice and marital counseling, I began to understand just how challenging marital happiness really is.

A happy marriage is a miracle. It requires people meeting, being draw to each other, successfully dating, overcoming commitment-phobia, prioritizing each other, keeping the marriage fresh, sustaining attraction, allowing the relationship to remain primary even amid the advent of kids, and to weather all the financial and health challenges that every marriage faces. Yes, its a miracle that any marriage is happy.

And yet, so many, thank God, are.

But were also taught never to rely on miracles. The Bible is clear: God will bless you in all the things that you do.

Its time for the American Jewish community, at every level of observance, to focus on getting Jewish singles married.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, Americas Rabbi, is the author of Dating Secrets of the Ten Commandments and Why Cant I Fall in Love? Follow him on Instagram and Twitter @RabbiShmuley.

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Jewish Singles Meltdown and How to Fix It - Jewish Journal

Labor MK and Reform rabbi Gilad Kariv joined the Women of the Wall for prayers and the Torah reading for Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan at the Western Wall amid disturbances on Thursday. Blue and White MK Alon Tal also took part in the prayers.

Kariv brought a Torah scroll to the plaza for the women to read from. As they attempted to read from the scroll, they were removed from the women's section of the plaza and finished reading the portion at the entrance to the women's section as they were pushed and yelled at.

Video from the plaza showed a security guard asking the women to "please stop" and stressing that the Torah scroll could not enter the women's section. "Let's prevent the provocation and mess. Stop," added the guard.

Protesters could be heard yelling and whistling in the background as the security guards confronted the women.

Women of the Wall attempt to read the Torah on Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan, October 7, 2021. (Credit: Women of the Wall)

The women stated that many of those confronting them during their prayers were not wearing masks, in opposition to Health Ministry guidelines.

The Western Wall Heritage Foundation stated that it was "saddened" by the disturbances on Thursday morning, saying that Kariv's attempt to bring a Torah scroll into the women's section was in opposition to explicit instructions from the Justice Ministry.

They stressed that a representative of the foundation approached Kariv and asked him not to use his immunity to take this step and that the MK had responded that while he respects the activities of the foundation, "he plans to act as he sees fit."

The foundation added that it made a special path for the Women of the Wall group "in an attempt to avoid friction by separating the groups."

"The foundation is deeply pained by these events and calls upon all parties to set aside disputes and give the proper respect to this holy site," it said.

"Once again, the rabbi of the Western Wall has shown that he is violent toward anyone who does not obey the separatist and extremist ultra-Orthodox laws that he is trying to impose on the Western Wall," according to Yochi Rappaport, director-general of Women of the Wall. "We call for the immediate implementation of the Western Wall layout and until then we will continue to arrive at the Western Wall and pray there as usual."

Kariv stated in response to the incident that the "conduct of the Western Wall rabbi and his men towards the women of the Western Wall is tainted by a serious violation of the provisions of the law and the ruling of the Jerusalem District Court."

The MK stressed that he and other MKs would "defend the right of the women of the Western Wall to pray as usual and to read the Torah in the women's section, until the full implementation of the outline of the Western Wall."

In protest against Kariv's participation in the prayers at the Western Wall, Porush sat down on the floor of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee and began reciting Psalms in order to disrupt the committee meeting while Kariv was speaking.

UTJ MK Meir Porush recites Psalms in protest during Knesset committee meeting, October 7, 2021 (Credit: Knesset Channel)

After allowing Porush to recite Psalms for a few minutes, Kariv continued the meeting while Porush continued reciting Psalms before eventually calling a ten-minute break to give Knesset ushers an opportunity to remove the UTJ MK from the room.

Kariv quoted a discussion in the Talmud concerning the sanctification and desecration of God's name in public, stressing that the Talmud states that sanctification comes by acting in a way that will cause the public to value tradition and faith. "I think we are receiving here a good class on what the desecration of God's name is and what the sanctification of God's name is," said Kariv.

Porush eventually left the room, saying "I will continue this protest until you get away from the Western Wall. You will not come to the women's section and I will not come here."

"The right to protest of Knesset members is important," said Kariv in response. "I was at the Western Wall this morning and I am glad that other Knesset members are exercising their right to protest. The walls of the committee did not fall and at least you merited us with a few Psalms."

See the rest here:

Women of the Wall conduct Rosh Chodesh prayers with MK Kariv - The Jerusalem Post

(RNS) I never really liked working at archaeological digs in Israel. Too much dust.

Besides, I have my own archaeological dig. Its called my files, and right about now, I am digging through them, trying to discern what to keep and what to discard.

That is how I came across a now-yellowed clipping from Esquire, November 1974. It is a long essay by the author Cynthia Ozick, with the title: All The World Wants the Jews Dead.

Ozick wrote that essay in the wake of the Yom Kippur War. Its subtitle: An overwrought view from the peak of the bottom. The piece is an anguished reflection on what had already become woefully apparent to me that anti-Israel sentiment and antisemitism were essentially identical.

Among many prescient quotes, this one: Jewish and Israeli are one and the same thing, and no one, in or out of Israel, ought to pretend differently any more. While that is not demographically true, she was right the terms Israeli and Israel were substitutions and euphemisms for Jews.

It is now 2021, and novelist Dara Horn has published her own set of reflections People Love Dead Jews: Reports From a Haunted Present. Dara mirrors and echos Cynthias literary flair, her focus on Judaism and her suspicions about the Jewish place in the world.

Take a minute to compare the titles of those two works.

Ozick believed the world wanted the Jews dead or, at the very least, that it wanted the Jewish state obliterated.

(Do I believe that? My conclusion is not as bloody as hers. It is fair enough to say that many people in the world want the Jewish state discredited.)

For Horn, it is not that the world wants the Jews dead.

But many in the world are blas about Jewish death, and therefore, find dead or suffering Jews to be the most sympathetic.

Consider a recent reflection by comedian Sarah Silverman. Sarah pleaded with the Squad (whose domestic politics she otherwise admires) not to defund the Iron Dome: Please dont defund the Iron Dome. You know my family lives there People only really like Jews if theyre suffering. Dead Jews get a lot of honor.

From Ozick to Horn to Silverman, the sobering truth: The world can relate to Jews who suffer. To Jews with power, not so much.

But it is not only the world that has a fascination with Jewish suffering. It is the Jews themselves.

For decades, I have been pushing back against what historian Salo Baron called the lachrymose view of Jewish history. Throughout my career, I have noticed it was easier to raise money for Holocaust memorials than for Jewish education, and that more Jews seemed to care about how Jews died than about how Jews live.

Horn has read my mind. She notes that any Jew can name three death camps, but that almost none can name three Yiddish authors the language spoken by over 80 percent of death-camp victims. What, I asked, was the point of caring so much about how people died, if one cared so little about how they lived?

In one essay, she contrasts the turnout at a rally against antisemitism with that of a celebration of the ending of a cycle of Talmud study (that essay contains some of the best descriptions of the world of the Talmud that I have ever read).

Horn makes so many salient points in this book of essays. Let me list for you my major takeaways.

Horn looks at the 2019 attack on the kosher grocery store in Jersey City, quite close to where she lives. There were almost immediate choruses of hemming and hawing, with some observers saying the attack on the Orthodox Jews was really a protest against gentrification.

Never mind that the Orthodox victims were themselves refugees from the gentrification of their old neighborhoods in Brooklyn. Never mind that the murderer did not live in that neighborhood, but rather, almost randomly looked for Jewish locations to attack.

Moreover, even if the murders had been a pushback against gentrification, whence the idea that violence is an appropriate reaction to neighborhood change? She writes:

As the journalist Armin Rosen has pointed out, the apparently murderous rage against gentrification has yet to result in anyone using automatic weapons to blow away white hipsters at the newest Blue Bottle Coffee.

People said you needed to put this horror into context. The very idea is obscene.

Context? I was not able to find any similar context in media reports after the 2015 massacre at a Black church in Charleston, South Carolina, or the 2016 massacre at an LGBTQ nightclub in Orlando, Florida, or the 2019 massacre at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas frequented by Latino shoppers all hate-crime attacks that unambiguously targeted minority groups This is hateful victim-blaming, the equivalent of analyzing the flattering selfies of a rape victim in lurid detail in order to provide context for a sexual assault.

Many of us understand that Jews, and Judaism and Jewish culture, are different. How different? Horn, who is first and foremost a scholar of Yiddish literature, points out that whereas typical stories end on an up note They all lived happily ever after that is not how Jewish stories end. Jewish stories are not as uplifting as we would want them to be.

This is especially true with stories about the Shoah, and it is even more true with stories about righteous gentiles. Everyone loves Schindlers List, but the truth is that .001% of Europeans saved Jewish lives.

In fact, quite often, Jewish stories do not end; they stop. The Torah does not really end; it just kind of stops with the death of Moses. In Jewish storytelling, (there is) a kind of realism that comes from humility, from the knowledge that one cannot be true to the human experience while pretending to make sense of the world, Horn writes.

You want to bring down the full wrath of a Jewish audience on your head? Try telling them: No, the people who worked at Ellis Island did not strip your great-grandfather of his European name.

And no, your ancestor was not the exception to that historical fact.

The truth is: The people who worked at immigration centers were highly literate, in multiple languages. They were not able to blithely change peoples names. They already knew the names of new arrivals. Why? Because they had the ship manifests before them.

But, no. This is the origin myth of American Jews, and as a myth, it is quite potent.

Horn says: No. She shows that it was Jews themselves who changed their own names, because they believed that more neutral names would lubricate their entry into America, and would be the key that would unlock the gates of opportunity.

I could have imagined Horn arguing that, in fact, it was the Jewish need to fit in that drove the name-changing thing. In other words, we changed our names because we wanted to assimilate.

Except

Many names circulating in the United States during this period were foreign-sounding and difficult to pronounce and spell for example, LaGuardia, Roosevelt, Juilliard, Lindbergh, DiMaggio, Vanderbilt, Earhart, Rockefeller, and Eisenhower. Yet as the remarkably low numbers of non-Jewish name-change petitioners in New York City demonstrate, such families and their forebears do not appear to have been subject to embarrassment or affected socially, educationally, economically, and patriotically by having names that were difficult to pronounce and spell.

In other words, it was not the desire to merely fit in. It was fear fear that American antisemitism would prevent their familys success. That Jews were not welcome here.

One last thing. It occurs to me that all the people whom I have cited in this essay Ozick, Silverman and Horn are women. Add to this the names of Deborah Lipstadt and Bari Weiss. Not to mention Horns dissertation adviser, Ruth Wisse.

It has long been this way, but it is only now, perhaps, that we notice: Some of the most trenchant observers of Jewish life and especially, some of the most vociferous voices against antisemitism are women. (Yes, her recent remarks offered Silverman an honorary key to this club.)

This is, as they say, good for the Jews.

Here is the original post:

The thing about dead Jews - Religion News Service

A Jewish school in London is refusing to teach pupils about same-sex relationships despite warnings from education watchdog Ofsted.

The Talmud Torah Machzikei Hadass, a strictly Orthodox school in Hackney, was rebuked by Ofsted for failing to meet the requirements of the curriculum.

In a recent inspection report Ofsted said: The curriculum did not pay regard to all the protected characteristics, specifically same-sex relationships and gender reassignment.Leaders are absolutely clear that they continue to have no intention of referencing same-sex relationships and gender reassignment with pupils.

An independent day school for boys of the Jewish faith,Talmud Torah Machzikei Hadass has 641 pupils between 3 to 16 and is chaired by Rabbi Baumgarten and Rabbi Klein.

Judaism categorically asks its followers to abstain from practicing same-sex relationships.Leviticus condemns the act, saying: If a man lies with a male as one lies with a woman, the two of them have done an abhorrent thing; they shall be put to death their bloodguilt is upon them.

SomeReform Jewsmay accept homosexuality, arguing that todays culture is very different to that of theAncient Hebrews. However, most Orthodox Jews would argue that Gods commands must be obeyed in a literal sense, in the same way that they follow the Jewish laws relating to food.

This is the second inspection of the school. In the 2020 inspection report Ofsted found that the standards of literacy in English were poor and the teaching of early reading in English did not start early enough. Furthermore, it said pupils weak reading and writing skills had a knock-on effect on their learning in other subjects.

The inspection report also stated that pupils did not learn enough about science, history or geography and teachers lacked expertise. There was not enough subject-specific training for staff.

Although the current inspection report suggests that some improvements have been, the report says: Improvements represent a step in the right direction. However, their long-term impact is yet to be seen.

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London Jewish school tells Ofsted it won't teach about same-sex relationships - 5Pillars