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CHANUKA VS. CHRISTMAS
Chanuka gelt — the traditional giving of coins to children — has morphed into eight days of present giving, concerts, sports events, vacations, trips and other sundry forms of indulgence and...
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The Weakness of Miracles
The Plague of Flies, by James Jacques Joseph Tissot at the Jewish Museum, New York. People harbor the naïve belief that if God will perform miracles then everyone would become believers and all...
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THE BLOOD LIBEL: CANARD OF JEWISH HISTORY
In light of Sarah Palin’s recent characterization of herself as the victim of a “blood libel” and the subsequent uproar it has received in the media, it seemed a fitting time to explain what the “blood...
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Judges Gone Mad
Common sense is really the basis of all human based justice and laws. Without such common sense we are likely to find fulfilled before our eyes the dire words of King Solomon, “The place of justice has...
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Prayer
The disaster of 9/11 caused people to pray who previously were not counted among those that pray regularly. Let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them. (Exodus 25:8) During the First...
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Yiddish: Repository of the Jewish Soul
In their long march through history, Jews have carried with them a lot of different languages. A Jew by nature is a linguist. He had to be in order to survive. The Jewish people have a knack of...
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How Haskalah Misread 19th Century Anti-Semitism
Far more virulent than religious anti-Semitism was racial anti-Semitism. Lord Rothschild’s pithy statement summarized it: “It is not my peculiar religion they object to; it is my peculiar nose.” The...
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Jews and Judaism
Grave of the Rebbe of Kotzk, master of the aphorism. He once said: “I would rather deal with a wicked man who knows that he’s a wicked man, than with a righteous man who knows that he’s a righteous...
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Will You Carry the Torah?
Kevin and Amy Lefcoe with the Sefer Torah “Will you carry the Torah?” …our trip captain asked me. “What would be involved?” I wondered aloud, contemplating the gravity of transporting, guarding,...
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The Pursuit of Bad Through Good Means
Emergency personnel gather outside Robb Elementary School, May 23, 2022, after a shooting in Uvalde, Texas. Photo credit: Dario Lopez-Mills AP. One of the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of a democratic...
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