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May 22, 2026, 9:27 AM

Shavuos – Not Necessarily Ruthless

A number of years ago, a prominent Jewish educator gave a shiur with the central theme that the Book of Ruth has no real antagonists. Everyone, the speaker maintained, simply makes understandable—if sometimes tragic—choices in a difficult world. I...

May 15, 2026, 6:56 PM

Bamidbar: ‘Numbers’ Isn’t Our Translation

Parshat Bamidbar begins with a count. Tribe by tribe, family by family, the Torah constructs a census of remarkable precision. Yet Chazal simultaneously express discomfort with counting Jews directly, associating it with plague, vulnerability, and a kind of spiritual...

May 8, 2026, 7:17 PM

Behar: The Other CRT

Parshat Behar introduces Yovel, the Jubilee year. Every fifty years the shofar is sounded and we are commanded, “U’krasem dror ba’aretz l’chol yoshveha” – “You shall proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof” (Vayikra 25:10). Those...

Apr 27, 2026, 7:10 AM

Emor: Nak-Behab?

At the end of Parshas Emor, the Torah recounts the case of the megadef, the blasphemer. His background could not have been more disadvantaged: his mother, Shlomit bat Divri, was the only wanton woman in the camp; his presumed...

Apr 25, 2026, 12:14 AM

The NY Times Platforms ‘Chamas’

The New York Times just published a glowing discussion titled “The Rich Don’t Play by the Rules. So Why Should I?” —a textbook case of the exact sin the Torah calls "chamas." In Parshas Noach (Bereishit 6:11), the world was...

Apr 19, 2026, 8:55 PM

Rabbi Kurtzer: Exile Yourself First

In a recent talk at the Capital Jewish Museum alongside Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, Dr. Yehuda Kurtzer — president of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America — offered American Jews a soothing bromide: embrace your “political homelessness.”...

Apr 17, 2026, 6:06 PM

Chalice Malice: Leo’s Balaamic Vinegar

In an age when too many voices blur moral lines, Rabbi Jonathan Muskat’s recent piece, “When Restraint Becomes a Moral Failure,” forthrightly declares that Pope Leo XIV’s position on the current conflict is not merely mistaken but “morally wrong...

Mar 20, 2026, 5:11 PM

Last week a Chabad emissary posted a triumphant video: outside the ADL conference, he and a friend wrapped tefillin on a Jewish pro-Palestinian protester. The wrapper in question defended the act against his own comrades’ jeers—“This has nothing to...

Feb 17, 2026, 10:50 AM

DW, Leni and Spike: They Got Shame

In August 1990, Spike Lee penned a defensive op-ed in The New York Times titled "I Am Not an Anti-Semite," responding to accusations that his film Mo' Better Blues peddled antisemitic stereotypes through its portrayal of two Jewish club...

Jan 9, 2026, 11:00 PM

No ‘Good’: Being Dan the Wrong Kaf

This past Sunday night NFL fans were treated to one of the wildest fourth quarters possible in a winner take all contest to end the regular season- and it ended with not one, but two, wildly missed kicks within...

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About Me

Jon Taub is an ex-Upper West Sider, now-married Riverdalean who has two MA's, plays three instruments, and consults for biostartups.