Yosie Levine, at The Blogs

Yosie Levine

Feb 14, 2021, 2:15 PM

Our government can’t force us to take the COVID-19 vaccine, but our morals should compel us to

Members of the National Guard prepare to inject the coronavirus vaccine at a mass vaccination site in the parking lot of Six Flags in Bowie, Md., Feb. 6, 2021.(Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images)

JTA — A poll released last week by Monmouth University showed that 24% of Americans likely will never get the COVID-19 vaccine if they can avoid it. One hopes that as people have more information and know others who have...

Nov 9, 2020, 2:54 PM

Remembering Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

We are devastated by the passing of one of our generation’s great leaders, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. Many are the eulogies and deserving tributes that have already been offered. Many more are sure to come. I humbly share but a...

Oct 6, 2020, 5:09 AM

If I am Not Compliant, Who Will Be? If I am the Only Compliant One, What am I?

Abandoned facemask face mask as protection against Covid-19 coronavirus

Throughout the medieval and early modern periods, three great canards plagued European Jewish communities: The blood libel; the accusation of host desecration; and the allegation of well poisoning. In the middle of the fourteenth century, for instance, it was...

May 11, 2020, 11:49 PM

Goldilocks and the Three Cures

Illustration by Arthur Rackham, 1918. (Wikipedia)

As we find ourselves in the middle of a pandemic, it's worth wondering what it means to occupy the middle. The columnist Molly Roberts recently made an insightful observation. She wrote that the “coronavirus is the Goldilocks amount of...

May 5, 2020, 10:54 PM

Longing for Lincoln

These past several weeks have offered contrasting lessons in leadership. As elected officials and health experts have stood on the public stage, they have succeeded and failed in ways too numerous to count. Absence creates longing. So we yearn...

Apr 29, 2020, 10:38 PM

The Plague of Waiting

One of the watchwords of the moment is waiting. We’re waiting for scientists to develop a vaccine. We’re waiting for our government to ramp up testing. We’re waiting for schools and shuls and businesses to reopen so that we...

Mar 20, 2016, 4:30 PM

An open letter to Donald Trump from Orthodox rabbis

The Orthodox Community Responds to Donald Trump at AIPAC March 18, 2016 Dear Mr. Trump: We are writing to you as you prepare to address the largest pro-Israel gathering in North America. We care deeply not only about America's relationship with Israel,...

About Me

Yosie Levine is the Rabbi of The Jewish Center. He has taken a leadership role on the issue of day school affordability and serves as the chair of Manhattan Day School's Political Advocacy Committee. He is co-chair of the Manhattan Eruv and is active in numerous communal organizations including AIPAC and the Beth Din of America and serves on the Board of UJA-Federation of New York. He earned a BA in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia College and as a Wexner Graduate Fellow received rabbinic ordination from the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary. He holds an MPA in Public Policy from NYU's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School and earned a doctoral degree in Early Modern Jewish History at Yeshiva University's Bernard Revel Graduate School. His doctoral dissertation is titled Hakham Zevi: An Intellectual Biography of an Early Modern Port Rabbi.

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