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Jul 20, 2026, 6:20 PM

From Blade Runner to Terminator to Gattaca: Science Fiction as a Factual Warning

The horizon of the so-called technological "Singularity" has long been the domain of futurists and science-fiction writers. But now, as the acceleration of machine intelligence pushes us ever closer, the warnings are hardening into urgent alarm. This op-ed attempts—drawing...

Jul 14, 2026, 11:05 AM

Halakha’s Kármán Line: Imagined and Real Jews in Space

Ilan Ramon, November 2001, NASA, https://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/sts-107/images/high/KSC-02PP-0490.jpg, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ilan_Ramon,_NASA_photo_portrait_in_orange_suit.jpg, cropped

In the late 1960s or early 1970s, when Rabbi Solomon B. Freehof – the most prolific author of responsa in the American Reform movement – was asked for sources in Jewish law in preparation for “a discussion of the...

Jul 7, 2026, 1:13 PM

Cosmic Moods: Reform Judaism Meets the Space Age

Rabbi Solomon B. Freehof in his younger years. American Jewish Archives. https://www.americanjewisharchives.org; https://press.huc.edu/pittsburgh-book-launch.
Rabbi Solomon B. Freehof, New Reform Responsa (Philadelphia: The Hebrew Union College Press, 1980), which included a responsum titled “Halacha and Space Travel.”

In 1970 – soon after the lunar landing – the most prolific respondent in American Reform Judaism and an expert on responsa literature, Rabbi Solomon Bennett Freehof (1892-1990), published an article in the Jewish Book Annual, titled “Recent Responsa...

Jul 3, 2026, 6:06 PM

Loeb’s UAP Advisory Council: NASA’s Distributed Model or the ODNI’s Centralized?

Loeb's UAP Advisory Council: NASA's Distributed Model or the ODNI's Centralized Model? Over the past two months, several developments have accelerated the involvement of the US government, academia, and the scientific community in the field of UAP (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena): ...

Jun 30, 2026, 11:20 AM

Lunar Shield Bearers: Halakhic Warfare in Rabbinic Journals

Rabbi Kasher’s Man on the Moon, first published in Noam, reprinted as separate booklet.

Buzz Aldrin photographed by Neil Armstrong, NASA photo ID AS11-40-5903, https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/SearchPhotos/photo.pl?mission=AS11&roll=40&frame=5903, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AS11-40-5903_-_Buzz_Aldrin_by_Neil_Armstrong_(full_frame).jpg

In the 1969-1970 issue of the journal Noam: A Forum for the Clarification of Contemporary Halakhic Problems, Rabbi Benzion Firer (1914-1988) published a responsum addressing the question of whether Jewish law was applicable on the Moon. Firer reached a...

Jun 30, 2026, 11:15 AM

Israel Is Building a CT Scanner for Clouds

Sometime in the coming weeks, a satellite about the size of a shoebox and roughly four kilograms, the heft of a small housecat, is set to lift off from California to attempt something no weather satellite has managed. It...

Jun 22, 2026, 12:14 PM

Angels and Astronauts: The Extraterrestrial Extinction of Jewish Law

Following the lunar landing on 20 July 1969, Rabbi Benzion Firer (1914-1988) addressed the following question: “In the last days, after man has succeeded in setting foot on the Moon, no longer do people laugh at the possibility of creating...

Bruce D. Forman

Jun 14, 2026, 9:36 PM

Would It Frighten You? What Spielberg’s New Alien Film Gets Backwards

Steven Spielberg's new film, Disclosure Day, opened this past weekend, and every trailer for it circles back to the same question: if proof arrived tomorrow that humanity is not alone in the universe, would it terrify you? It's a good...

Jun 9, 2026, 10:04 AM

A Giant Leap: Lunar Landing and Legal Impossibility

Hatzofe, Friday 25 July 1969 (Historical Jewish Press, https://www.nli.org.il/he/discover/newspapers/jpress)

On 20 July 1969, the Apollo 11 Lunar Module successfully landed on the Moon. Neil Armstrong, followed by Buzz Aldrin, became the first humans to walk on the lunar surface. As Armstrong stepped out of the spacecraft, he famously...

Jun 4, 2026, 8:03 PM

The Heavenly Horizon: A Spaceman’s Shabbat

Rabbi David Shloush, 2008 (Wikipedia, https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%A7%D7%95%D7%91%D7%A5:Rabi_david_shloush.jpeg, Public Domain)

On 1 April 2026 – the eve of Passover 5786 – NASA launched a crewed spacecraft on a flyby trajectory around the Moon and back to Earth. This was the first crewed flight near the Moon since Apollo 17...

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