Avidan Freedman, at The Blogs

Apply for a Blog

Jan 18, 2019, 10:15 AM

Gevald! My Rabbis Are Failing Me!

"When you are halachic decisors, teachers and rabbis, you will need to know all of the halachic argumentation that we have said, but also to cry out this ‘Gevald’ that the previous generations did not yell… An arab woman,...

Aug 28, 2018, 9:55 AM

Myanmar has learned the lessons of the Holocaust. All too well.

Rohingya women cry and shout slogans during a protest rally to commemorate the first anniversary of Myanmar army's crackdown on Rohingya Muslims, Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh, Saturday, Aug. 25, 2018. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

'Never again' must also mean that Israel will not abet a genocidal regime

Jul 16, 2018, 11:14 PM

Why not to fast on Tisha B’Av

One and a half million people in South Sudan have fled their homes because of violence and starvation.

Well, do you make decisions based on realpolitik, or based on religious value commitments?

Jul 13, 2018, 7:15 AM

Hard Questions about Holocaust Memory Desecration

Politicians from across the political spectrum jumped at the opportunity last week to criticize Prime Minister Netanyahu for the joint statement released together with the Polish government relating to the latter's responsibility for atrocities during the Holocaust. You can't...

Jun 23, 2018, 11:44 PM

What You Can – And Must- Do About Genocide

If you’re a person who can hear stories about soldiers who enter a village and throw babies into a bonfire, or rape all the women, or herd families into huts and burn them alive, and then shrug your shoulders...

Mar 28, 2018, 9:00 AM

A strange invitation and our slave mentality

Illustrative: Lina, an asylum seeker from Sudan, with the finished mural on Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv on February 21, 2018. (Melanie Lidman/Times of Israel)

The Passover mentality is one of bounty, which should help open Israeli hearts to asylum seekers

Sep 29, 2017, 12:22 PM

For This Sin, Israel’s Supreme Court Just Ruled Soul-Searching Forbidden

Yom Kippur is a day dedicated to self-examination and soul-searching, but Israel’s supreme court has declared that forbidden, at least in regards to one deeply troubling issue. This past Monday, the court heard yet another petition concerning the sale of...

Sep 20, 2017, 12:28 AM

55 rabbis, educators and communal leaders call on Israel to stop selling weapons to Burma

To the honorable Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Mr. Binyamin Netanyahu And the honorable President, Mr. Reuven Rivlin, The Rohingya tribe, an ethnic minority in Burma (Myanmar) often referred to as the “most persecuted minority in the world,” have suffered systematic...

Jul 28, 2017, 8:23 AM

Is Religious Zionism really religious?

When Israel exports weapons to human rights violators, it loses the moral bedrock without which Jewish sovereignty fails

Jul 5, 2017, 9:34 AM

Six million plus one

Israel makes money off the suffering of millions by supporting South Sudan's terror, and only one person is protesting

Load more

About Me

Avidan Freedman is the rabbi of the Shalom Hartman Institute's Hevruta program, an educator Hartman Boys High School in Jerusalem, and an activist against Israeli weapons sales to human rights violators.