Yoseif Bloch

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Dec 18, 2020, 10:03 AM

Shabbat shalom, easy fast, merry Xmas, wear a mask

Last Friday was the first day of Hanukkah, this Friday is the last, and next Friday is... complicated. It's the last Friday of 2020. It's Erev Shabbat, as every Friday is. But it's also Christmas--and the Fast of 10 Tevet....

Oct 30, 2020, 10:34 AM

That's what everyone calls us, right? And you would expect it to be front-and-center in the first book of the Torah. But choice -- bechira in Hebrew, the plural bechirot being Modern Hebrew for elections -- does not come...

Oct 18, 2020, 3:58 PM

Stop trying to kill my mother

People wearing face masks shop at the Mahane Yehuda Market in Jerusalem on October 7, 2020, during a nationwide lockdown to prevent the spread of COVID-19 (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Israel needs the government to be a grownup and stop rushing into opening back up

Oct 7, 2020, 1:46 PM

The Seven Sukkot

Sukkot is a Hebrew word meaning ‘how many holidays can Jews fit into one month?’ The answer, of course, is ‘I can’t be in tomorrow. It’s a Jewish holiday.' -- The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Oct. 15 2008 Jon...

Sep 26, 2020, 10:46 PM

How do I forgive?

I'm really not in a forgiving mood. Less than 24 hours from Yom Kippur, I'm supposed to be. We stand before God and ask Him to pardon our trespasses on the Day of Atonement, so we need to forgive others....

Jul 29, 2020, 1:56 PM

To intermit the plague

Israel's new coronavirus czar, Prof. Ronni Gamzu, has a name with Talmudic significance. The Babylonian Talmud (Ta'anit 21a) tells us of a sage named Nahum of Gamzu, who would say about every event in his life "This too is...

Jul 21, 2020, 4:11 PM

The burning Talmud

Family members of Malka Leifer, an Ultra orthodox teacher wanted in Australia for child sex abuse, arrive for a court hearing at the District Court in Jerusalem on July 20, 2020. Photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90

The case of accused child sex offender Malka Leifer has tarnished the image of Torah and the image of Israel in the world

Apr 25, 2020, 11:16 PM

Bubby has left us

Last month. Barely six weeks ago. It doesn't seem possible, but that's when my oldest son got up at his Purim bar mitzva celebration to give his speech. Thank you to everyone for coming to celebrate my becoming a bar...

Apr 13, 2020, 9:42 AM

Jewish Countess

Today is Day 32, which is four weeks and four days, of our lockdown/ quarantine/ isolation, since Israel's schools shut down; but we are also on Day 4 of a new calculus, that of the seven weeks from Pesach...

Mar 16, 2020, 4:31 PM

Staying home with God

An ultra-Orthodox Jewish man wearing a plastic-covered hat speaks on the phone at the nearly deserted Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City on March 12, 2020, after Israel announced new restrictions to contain the coronavirus. (Emmanuel Dunand/AFP)

Sure, praying and studying Torah in public is nice, but you can fulfill these mitzvot very well in the privacy of your own home -- and you should!

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About Me

Yoseif Bloch is a rabbi who has taught at Yeshivat HaKotel, Yeshivat Har Etzion and Yeshivat Shvilei Hatorah and served as a congregational rabbi in Canada. He currently works as an editor, translator and publisher. As a blogger and podcaster, he is known as Rabbi Joe in Jerusalem.