I have so little athletic ability, that I can’t be a good Monday morning quarterback – not even weeks later. Despite all that people have written – including most of my friends – I cannot fault the campaign that attempted to stop the execution of Martin Grossman. Moreover, I believe that the kernel idea behind it is absolutely essential to the survival of the State of Israel.

To be sure, readers have expressed valid concerns, especially with the advantage of hindsight.

Should the community ever work on behalf of a convicted murderer, or allow the secular courts to enforce the punishment that he deserves? This is a halachic question with an accompanying literature. R Yaakov Emden (Even Bochein 1:73), for example, finds within halacha a license for non-Jewish authorities to execute a Jewish criminal. Shut Chasam Sofer 6:14 strongly disagrees. I will leave the psak to others.

There were non-halachic concerns as well. Some were concerned with the perception by the family of the victim that our community was callous to their loss. Others were concerned with the idiot factor. Some of the messages sent to the Governor Crist present a strong case for substituting their authors for the perpetrator … Read More >>

The national convention of the Jewish Law Students Association came to town, and I had the opportunity to speak several times, both at the opening banquet at the Museum of Tolerance, and later at the Sunday sessions at Pepperdine University in Malibu. Arguably, the high point of the gathering was the magisterial presentation over lunch by Alan Dershowitz. It was both an updated Case For Israel, and an unmasking of the evil of Goldstone. It is slated to go online soon as a YouTube; I would urge anyone who is sometimes called upon to state Israel’s case to see it. In the interim, I will simply share a few of his vignettes and choicer turns-of-a-phrase.

Explaining why at one point he thought that a Jewish association for law students was needed only in the days of blatant bias in hiring Jews, Dershowitz shared that when he graduated, he was turned down by 32 Wall Street firms who would not hire Jews. Only the Jewish ones took him, and one withdrew when they learned he was shomer Shabbos. (I am pained when I hear of any Jew estranged from his or her Torah birthright; listening to Dershowitz’s brilliance intensified the pain, … Read More >>

The comments I read on the first sites and petition forms that I saw left me very uncomfortable and torn. The arguments were primitive, hopelessly parochial – to the point that they struck me as creating a chilul Hashem. Do we want to save a life BE”H at the expense of creating a chilul Hashem? (I have seen this time and time again. Frum Jews pack the courtroom at a sentencing hearing and say the most outlandish things, sometimes impacting the judge to move in the very opposite direction that they wanted.)

It doesn’t have to be that way. There is a tasteful and appropriate way to ask for clemency or review. Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zweibel articulated it perfectly in his mailing today, reproduced below. I hope that all will respond to this call.

No one need to have misgivings about asking for clemency. Other people from very different frames of reference will be making the same arguments. I friend of mine, decidedly outside the haredi and Agudah orbits, reminded me today that we knew Mike Farrell, the actor who played BJ Hunnicut decades ago on M*A*S*H (This was on a show that none of our readers ever watched, on a gadget … Read More >>

I don’t believe that I will ever again meet anyone like Bernie Lander. I’ve met two kinds of people best described as bigger than life: those of huge vision, and those of huge accomplishment. Both are essential to a forward-moving community. Each adds an invaluable element to the full picture. Each kind usually has a deficiency. Those with the necessary vision are often incapable of translating that vision into a reality, and those who are builders and doers often narrow their vision to the job in front of them, and no further. Rabbi Dr. Lander was the only person I ever met whose creative imagination was enormous – and whose vision was matched perfectly by his performance. Somehow, he managed to make all the dreams come true. He talked big, but there was not gap between the talk and the walk.

The dimensions of his accomplishment are breathtaking. Starting from the ground up, he built a university whose scope and scale swamp those of much older institutions. Learning programs, academic programs, vocational programs, day programs, evening programs, undergraduate, graduate and professional schools, in New York, across the country, and in foreign countries – if it could be imagined, Bernie Lander … Read More >>

China used to bother me quite a bit when I was younger. A lot of people seemed to live there, but it was notoriously absent from the world view of Chazal. (At that point in life, I had assumed that if something was real, it had to be explicitly featured in the chief texts of our mesorah.) How could something that big escape the notice of Chazal? One could follow a thread in Chazal that reduced the course of human civilization to a clash between Yaakov and Esav (after a few minor intrusions). There were many supporting actors besides the ones with top billing, but the Chinese didn’t rate as understudies or even extras.

Years later, I would often be asked the same or similar question by talmidim. What purpose, they would ask, do the Chinese serve? (Those were the years in which they were the Bad Guy Commies, not our trading partners and major consumers of our debt, so the question made at least limited sense.)

As the years went by, I modified my expectation of what I should find explicitly mentioned by Chazal and what I should not find. It’s a pity, because I think I … Read More >>

I just watched the YouTube of Chief Inspector Joe Sullivan of the Philadelphia Police Department explain what went wrong on that flight to Louisville Thursday morning. A cabin attendant, not familiar with the Jewish ritual device, became alarmed, etc. The plane was diverted to Philadelphia, where police determined that the device was no threat to safety. It is a black box worn on the forehead, with leather straps leading from it to another box worn on the arm. The device is known as an olfactory.

Something doesn’t smell right about the story.

The problem was certainly not with the Philadelphia PD. They couldn’t know about olfactories, having their hands full coping with all those late-night disturbances at the Philadelphia Yeshiva, one of the most notorious party-schools in the country.

The destination of the plane is cause for suspicion. Louisville is where the Presbyterian Church (USA) is headquartered. PCUSA was the first mainline Protestant denomination to approve divestment of its investment funds from Israel (although later repealed by its membership, which is not hostile to Israel, unlike some of its leadership). Its Israel-Palestine Mission Network routinely posts some of the worst anti-Israel – and, on occasion, anti-Semitic – … Read More >>

I was pleased that Agudah very quickly sent out a message pointing people to suitable agencies to which to donate. (I was frankly horrified that they included Oxfam, the virulently anti-Israel NGO. More suitable agencies are not in short supply.) It was understandable that Agudah did not mount a campaign of their own – they do not have a website. The OU does have one, and within a short period of time it had put a donation mechanism in place. Funds collected will go directly to the American Joint Distribution Center, which has already helped defray the cost of the Israeli relief mission. This is where I made my donation.

To a large extent, charitable giving in times of catastrophe is related to feelings of commonality. As of this writing, contributions in the US are ahead of those after the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, despite the much higher death toll then. Haiti is America’s neighbor, and Americans therefore feel more of a bond.

For frum Jews with scores of needs competing for our tzedakah funds – some of them life-threatening – the issue is more complicated. I have nothing to say to those who … Read More >>

While Rabbi Dovid Batzri’s first attempt to drive the dybbuk out was not apparently successful, R. Elyashiv, shtlit”a, reportedly refused to allow it in in the first place, according to the account in Chadrei Chareidim. “Go away from here. I have no business with a dibuk.”

Assume, for the sake of argument, that the account is accurate. (My own practice is to follow R. Elyashiv’s own directive, and assume that nothing quoted in his name is accurate, unless heard directly from him. Even then, I would be skeptical if any background information regarding an issue that was delivered to him by one of his more notorious gatekeepers, who are known to color, filter, and distort.) Was R. Elyashiv dismissive of the possibility that the unfortunate young man from Brazil was possessed by a dybbuk? Did he, like R. Moshe Sternbuch, shlit”a, see mental illness as the cause of the aberrant behavior, rather than a freeloading spirit? Or did he dismiss the dybbuk because he had nothing to say to it, and didn’t particularly relish its company?

The same account claims that R. Elyashiv certainly did not rule out the possibility of a real case of possession. Shlomo Kook, the … Read More >>

Simple instructions often claim “three” as their magic number. Think, “It’s as easy as A,B,C,” or “ready, aim, fire,” or “liberté, égalité, fraternité.” So it shouldn’t be surprising that someone telescoped the rules of justifiable speech into three simple questions: Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?

It may not be surprising, until you read a bit more in a lovely article in the Wall Street Journal (January 6), and thereby discover that this formula is attributed to Socrates, or perhaps Buddhist tradition. Either way, the authors apparently came up with program for civilizing and uplifting speech civil with very little help from Sura, Pumbedisa, or Neherda’a.

Did they scoop us? Maybe not. There is no question that society would be in a better place if more people would use this tripartite litmus test before speaking (or blogging!). Under closer scrutiny, however, the program turns out to be unworkable. Seen from a Torah perspective, it is not only unworkable, but inaccurate as well!

Lest we be seen as intolerably persnickety, let us give credit where due. The article is a pleasure to read. It is good to hear that many people are aware of the damage done … Read More >>

Dovid HaMelech prided himself in speaking enthusiastically and unabashedly to foreign royalty about Hashem’s Torah (Tehilim 119:46). Too many of us react, “Gee, if I were in that position, what would I say? Why would they be interested?” We have lots to say, but we haven’t always thought carefully enough about what parts of the Torah’s message are most accessible and stimulating to others. Because of our reluctance to intelligently showcase Torah (and increasingly, the sorry state of our communications skills), we lose opportunities to influence our friends and neighbors, whether of royal lineage or not.

When a good friend of mine excitedly told me about a successful presentation to a non-Orthodox audience, I asked him to send me the transcript. Rabbi Meyer May is the Executive Director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) in Los Angeles, where I work. He was asked to speak in Dublin at an event over the New Year’s weekend co-sponsored by iACT (SWC’s campus outreach wing) and the European Center for Jewish Students. The students from Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, London, Dublin, Marseilles, Lyon, Paris, Antwerp, Brussels, Amsterdam, Russia, the Ukraine, Brazil, Berlin, Dusseldorf, Sweden and Gibraltar. The speech was met with … Read More >>

An avid reader and commenter (who shall remain unnamed) put us on the trail of a professional who has been guiding yeshiva men entering the workplace. Said professional put together some of his reactions based on his significant experience in helping frum men find positions. After some prodding, said professional revealed his name. It turns out that he, too, is an avid Cross-Currents reader. Daniel Rubin has a Masters in Human Resources from Rochester Institute of Technology and has made the transition from Jewish education to corporate training and development. He has been involved in both of these fields for over a decade each and actively mentors young professionals. We thank him for this contribution, which is must reading for the inexperienced job seeker.

As an employee for a large corporation within a mainstream Jewish community, I’ve had the opportunity to respond to many requests for job search assistance from both individuals and Jewish organizations dedicated to this effort. As a result of this experience, I feel compelled to share a few thoughts on what I believe to be a significant concern. Several of the candidates who have approached me have a number … Read More >>

If you don’t know what it stands for, skip the rest of this piece. I am not going to rehash the whole sordid affair.

For what it is worth, I will offer one man’s opinion, written as a bit of an insider in the world of gerus, since I sit from time to time on a respected beis din for gerus. The opinions expressed herein are my own; they were not vetted by my colleagues.

I have come neither to praise EJF, nor to bury it. If I believed that EJF was worthless, I wouldn’t bother writing. It is only because I see the potential for accomplishment that I pen these thoughts, in the hope that others will feel the same way.

The chief problem with EJF is not its recent scandal-ridden past. The problem is that to date, it has not done enough to insure that the past will not be repeated. The way in which it has addressed the past hardly inspires any confidence.

The first thing that EJF should have done is promptly apologized. It should have apologized to any and all victims, and to the Torah public for sullying its reputation. The victims include gerim whose credentials were unfairly … Read More >>

Los Angeles yidden lost one of their most beloved yesterday. I lost a cherished friend. It will take a long while to remember and reflect. What I offer here are just a few early thoughts, more cathartic to me than a proper tribute.

I have lost friends, close relatives, and even students before. I have witnessed the sudden, unexpected loss of young people. I have grieved for my own losses, and shared in the grieving of others. Something was different here. Charlie Abbott was not supposed to die. Sure, everyone gets called back to the Yeshiva Shel Ma’alah. But nobody thought it would happen to Charlie.

We all reacted to the news of his melanoma just slightly differently than Esav. The day that he yielded the bechorah to Yaakov, Esav had been guilty of the three cardinal sins of Yiddishkeit – the worst of the worst. It was the day of their grandfather Avraham’s levaya. The ba’alei mussar explain that Esav recoiled in shock at his zeide’s death. He wasn’t supposed to die. Shouldn’t a tzadik like Avraham weather any storm or crisis? The magnitude of his merit was immeasurable. Wouldn’t G-d hold him in the palm of His hand, … Read More >>