Jeremy Rosen

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Sep 27, 2024, 3:03 AM

Should God Atone too?

We are approaching a period of atonement. And sometimes I wonder who should be atoning. I hope you don’t mind my fanciful thinking; in the pain we have experienced this past year. It may sound blasphemous. But perhaps God...

Sep 13, 2024, 8:38 PM

We humans love certainties. We think we know, but more often than not, we stumble on. Our history is replete with failed systems and misguided leaders. Look at the Bible. Even the best of them is fallible. And the...

Aug 23, 2024, 7:48 AM

Robert Wistrich and Jew Hatred

Many, many books have been written about the Holocaust and antisemitism. Amongst my favorites is Anthony Julius’s Trials of the Diaspora ( for an English slant) and David Nirenberg’s Anti-Judaism from an American perspective. But when it comes to...

Aug 2, 2024, 12:28 AM

Who Was Peter Bergson?

The anniversary of Hillel Kook’s death was this week. A Jewish Walter Mitty and a colorful, complex, dual personality also known as Peter Bergson. He was born in Lithuania in 1915. The son of Rabbi Dov Kook, the younger...

Jul 19, 2024, 8:07 PM

Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great (356-323 BCE) holds a very special place in Jewish historiography and mythology. It is true that there was, traditionally, antagonism towards ‘Greek Wisdom.’ He passed through the Land of Israel on his way to Egypt although...

May 24, 2024, 12:38 AM

Rebbi Akiva Loser or Winner?

Rebbi Akiva, born in 50 CE, was one of the greatest rabbis of the Talmud. He was also one of the most controversial. Against the opinion of most of his colleagues he supported the Bar Cochba revolution against Rome...

May 17, 2024, 11:18 PM

Was Josephus a hero or a traitor?

The man we know as Josephus (the Romans called him Flavius Josephus ), was an aristocratic Judean, born in Jerusalem in 37 CE and died in Rome somewhere around 100 CE. He was a highly controversial historical personality. His...

May 10, 2024, 8:27 AM

Zionism vs. Judaism

David Ben-Gurion in his library in Sdeh Boker. Envisioning Israel’s future hearkens back to the modern state’s roots — namely, the pioneering spirit of Ben-Gurion, writes Doug Seserman. Credit: National Photo Collection of Israel/GPO.

If Ben-Gurion went too far in implying that Jews must live in Israel, insisting that Jews have the right to live Jewishly there was exactly on target

May 6, 2024, 12:04 AM

On Yom HaShoah we will hear the cliché “ Never again” and realize it means nothing to the majority of people in the so-called civilized world. We deluded ourselves into thinking that memorials, education, and world sympathy would protect...

Apr 18, 2024, 10:24 PM

“Behold I will send you Elijah (Eliyahu) the prophet before the great awesome Day of God and he will reconcile fathers to children and children to fathers” (Malachi 3:24). This is part of the Haftarah for Shabbat HaGadol, the Shabbat...

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About Me

Jeremy Rosen is an English born Orthodox rabbi, graduate of Mir Yeshivah and Cambridge University. He was a lecturer at WUJS Arad, and former headmaster of Carmel College, Professor and Chairman of the faculty for Comparative Religion in Antwerp and Rabbi in Scotland London and now in New York. His weekly blog is at jeremyrosen.blogspot.com