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Joseph C. Kaplan

Jun 18, 2026, 11:59 PM

That Best Portion of a Person’s Life

A few short weeks after my back surgery, my wife, Sharon, had toe surgery, leaving us with a total of two good feet between us. The surgeries brought us closer together in one way, since, after mine, she drove...

Jun 18, 2026, 10:32 PM

Confronting The Snake

It takes us just a week to read a story that spans almost forty years. Punished for ingratitude and lack of faith, the Jews were forced to wander in the wilderness. Parashat Chukat describes thirty-eight years of those travels....

Paul Mendlowitz

Jun 14, 2026, 9:44 PM

How the Ultra-Orthodox Rabbis Destroyed Reason and Common Sense – Victims Galore

There was a time when Judaism produced giants who saw no contradiction between Torah and reason. The greatest example remains Maimonides, the Rambam, who was simultaneously a rabbi, physician, philosopher, scientist, and legal scholar. He believed that the human...

Tobey Finkelstein

Jun 11, 2026, 12:26 PM

If only just a few Haredim were calling police ‘Nazis’ and women ‘shiksas’

Haredi protesters attempt to block traffic on a road in Beit Shemesh during a demonstration on June 9, 2026. (Israel Police)

Ultra-Orthodox rioters are no longer fringe extremists: I watched local teens block cars and my Haredi neighbors cheer them on – as the police did nothing

Michael Feldstein

Jun 11, 2026, 3:00 AM

More Than Just a Kashrut Organization

Used with permission

For many people, the Orthodox Union is instantly recognizable for the small "OU" symbol on millions of kosher products worldwide. For more than a century, the organization has been synonymous with kosher certification, establishing itself as one of the...

Elchanan Poupko

Jun 9, 2026, 6:51 PM

Settler violence is reshaping religious Zionism

As Kahanist ideas gain ground, religious Zionism's failure to confront settler violence is endangering both Israel's future and the movement's soul

Andrew Logan Lawrence

May 27, 2026, 3:56 PM

Shalom Y’all: A Jewish Story Older Than America

If you ask most people where American Jewish history begins, they'll say New York. Some might know about Newport. Almost no one says Georgia. And yet, just five months after the colony of Georgia was founded in 1733, a ship...

May 27, 2026, 4:20 AM

Why the Chareidi & Dati Leumi Divide Goes Deeper Than Strictness

We are looking inside a world that outsiders flatten (David Katash, FrockInStock.com).

It is not a frumkeit ranking, but a question of religious instinct, cultural memory, and which world feels like home. Recently, I saw an online discussion on Imamother — a popular online forum for frum women — about whether there...

Andy Blumenthal

May 17, 2026, 8:16 AM

Why I Came Back to Shul

For years, one of the absolute best perks of returning regularly to synagogue has been rediscovering a very specific, distinctly Jewish superpower: our humor. It’s warm, deeply self-aware, and forged through millennia of practicing the art of the collective...

May 17, 2026, 12:18 AM

Possibilities For Friendship And The Service Year

Adi Negev where most of us work at the Service Year, my photo

Although I was born in Israel and grew up in Haifa, I did not have a close Modern Orthodox friend until after I returned to Israel following almost ten years in the U.S. In Haifa, on Mount Carmel (where Naftali...

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