Times of Israel — Ops & BlogsHow Iran’s Intellectual Infrastructure Has Been Erased For over 45 years, the Iranian dictatorship has engaged in systematic social and political engineering of society. By deliberately eroding the boundary between facts and ideological…
Times of Israel — Ops & BlogsWhat Conservative Judaism Can Teach a Fragmented Jewish World Judaism has never been a tradition of easy answers. The rabbis did not build Jewish civilization by eliminating disagreement. They preserved it, studied it, argued through it,…
Times of Israel — Ops & BlogsYom Kippur, A Sanctuary of Time In almost every Jewish community, there are people known as the “Jews of Yom Kippur”: those who never enter a synagogue during the year except on that day. Some come as soon as Kol Nidrei, others arrive…
Times of Israel — Ops & BlogsIt was the morning before Yom Kippur and I hadn’t done tashlich yet, but there was another errand involving a trip to nature on my checklist; I needed to deposit some bones. The idea of making a pilgrimage to the forest to deposit chicken…
Times of Israel — Ops & Blogs“Justice, justice you shall pursue”… does not entail patting ourselves on our backs because we have raised an Israel flag and said a prayer, but in pursuing meaningful action: justice for Israel. It’s been three years and three months…
Times of Israel — Ops & BlogsMore than half a century ago, on Yom Kippur, Israel was taken by surprise. Egyptian and Syrian forces attacked, an intelligence conception that had seemed solid collapsed within hours, and a country that entered the holiday with a sense…
Times of Israel — Ops & BlogsA Fundamental Chakirah in the Meaning of Inuy One of the central mitzvos of Yom Kippur is the obligation of “ועניתם את נפשותיכם” — “You shall afflict your souls.” The Torah commands us to experience inuy, affliction, on the holiest day of…
Times of Israel — Ops & BlogsTeshuvah, Tzedakah, and the Moral Evolution of a Jewish Tradition After Shabbat ended, following Havdalah, I was told that I could perform kapparot in one of two places: on Avenue J near East 29th Street, or on President Street in Crown…
Times of Israel — Ops & BlogsThis week, Israel marks fifty-three years since the Yom Kippur War, and the anniversary lands with a weight it has never carried before, because on October 7, 2023, we watched history repeat itself with terrible precision. Fifty years…