Ari Afilalo

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Nov 24, 2023, 11:04 AM

Another crime for which there is no name

In his radio broadcast of August 24, 1941, shortly after the Einsatzgruppen launched their systematic massacre of Jewish communities throughout Europe, Sir Winston Churchill told the world that “Jews in entire districts are being exterminated” and that “we are...

Nov 29, 2021, 5:47 AM

Choose Your Camp: Save Ethiopian Jews

The Israeli government's decision today to allow only 3,000 Ethiopian Jews to make Alyah as part of a limited family reunification program, while leaving more than 11,000 of their brothers and sisters to face hunger, a raging civil war,...

Apr 23, 2021, 6:16 PM

They killed our mama: A tale of two verdicts

On April 4, 2017, Kobili Traoré, 27, brutally killed his neighbor Sarah Halimi, of blessed memory, in the mixed ethnic Belleville neighborhood of Paris. Sarah was a retired Jewish grandmother. She had been a doctor and the principal of...

Apr 7, 2021, 6:28 PM

The Soul of the Question: Responsa from the Depths

Rabbi Ephraim Oshry, of blessed memory, was a young halakhic scholar in Kovno, the second largest city of Lithuania, when the Nazis invaded on June 23, 1941. The Nazis rounded up and imprisoned the city’s Jews in a squalid...

Sep 8, 2020, 4:58 PM

Bad hair day: A back-to-school blessing

Our beloved children’s day school reopens today on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, six months after COVID19 shut it down. This is a meaningful snapshot of Jewish history: in this generation as well, facing a serious threat, we prioritize education...

Jul 24, 2020, 11:23 PM

Recapturing the Shamir’s Power from the Angels

The Mishnah teaches that when the Temple was destroyed, the “Shamir” and the “sweetness of honeycomb” disappeared along with it. The Shamir was an essential element in King Solomon’s building of the Temple. The Torah prohibited the King from...

Mar 4, 2020, 8:54 AM

The Unknown Soldiers and the Unfound Leader

We just marked 7 Adar, the birth date of Moshe Rabbeinu and the anniversary of his passing. Our tradition teaches that, on that day, the Almighty personally buried Moshe in an unmarked grave that will forever remain unknown. Uniting...

Feb 7, 2020, 8:38 PM

First step to freedom, birth of a leader

In this week’s Parsha Moshe reaches his lowest point but immediately springs back to become the true leader of the Jews. This is Moshe’s crowning. Until now, God had done the work, sending plagues, signs, and taking the Hebrew...

Apr 30, 2019, 9:21 PM

From Depths to Summits on Yom HaShoah

By Gidi Grinstein and Ari Afilalo Yom HaShoah, to be marked on Thursday of this week, commemorates the destruction of European Jewry by Nazi Germany and celebrates the legacy of tremendous bravery demonstrated by Ghetto fighters and Jewish Partisans and...

Mar 14, 2019, 9:29 PM

Bibi Is Violating the Nation-State Law

Our prime minister has gotten into the habit of violating the Nation-State Law by using his leadership voice and bully pulpit to promote ideas that thousands of years of Halakhic Judaism abhors. Beyond any binding legal effect, the Nation-State Law...

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About Me

Ari Afilalo (afilalo@camden.rutgers.edu) is a professor of law at Rutgers Law School in New Jersey. He grew up in France, the son of a Jewish Moroccan family, in an ethnically mixed working class neighborhood. He has published extensively in the field of international law. He is the current president of the West Side Sephardic Synagogue in Manhattan.