Rebellion

Why is it that Ireland is probably the most antisemitic country in Europe? The answer lies in its history. Read more

Shabbat Shemot: Knowing, Forgetting, remembering

A new king arose who did not know of Joseph (Exodus 1.8). Read more

Why The Bible Began?

I pick up any academic book on the Bible with trepidation. First of all, because the very term needs clarification. Are we talking about the Old Testament or the New? For Jews, there is only one Bible. Read more

Shabbat Vayehi – Fear not

As we complete the book of Bereishit, Genesis, this week, Jacob has died, and the brothers now turn to Joseph and say, “Our father asked us to beg you to forgive us for what we did to you”( Genesis 50:15-21 ). Read more

Shabbat Vayigash: Diplomacy

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Neturei Karta

At demonstrations against Israel in New York, marching with our enemies (as they do at Israel parades) was a small pathetic clique of Chassidim in their distinctive uniforms called Neturei Karta, literally The Protectors of the City in Aramaic. Read more

Shabbat Mikeytz: End of Days

This week’s Torah reading starts when Joseph had been in jail for a crime he had not committed. Read more

About miracles

I am wary of miracles. Not that amazing, unpredictable, and seemingly miraculous things do not happen all the time. Read more

Shabbat Vayeyshev: The female condition

This week, we have another narrative of a sexual nature concerning Tamar, the daughter-in-law of Jacob’s son Judah, the future leader of the Children of  Israel (Genesis Chapter 38). Read more

Elegy for New York

I made the mistake, once, of thinking New York was the best place for Jews outside Israel. Read more

Shabbat Vayishlach: Rape

The horror of rape has existed since the earliest of times, and particularly during periods of war, units of depraved men have exercised rape as a reward for conquest or a means of humiliation. Read more

1984 is now

In August, Adam Gopnik published an article in the New Yorker of the August 28, 2023, issue, with the headline “The Biggest Losers.” Read more

Shabbat Vayeytzey: Initiative

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The Don Pacifico Affair

As diplomats shuttle to and from the Middle East and countries threaten each other, the USA has sent its navy to the Mediterranean. It is worth going back to look at the Don Pacifico Affair 176 years ago. Read more

Shabbat Toldot: Esau or Ishmael

Last week, we read about how Isaac and Ishmael came together to bury their father. And in fact, they lived together at the same place, Be’er Lechai Roi. Their coming together seems to have been complete. Read more

Unimaginable pain

The unimaginable pain on seeing the evidence of children tortured, limbs cut off and burnt to death, screams for an explanation. Why did God let this happen? Read more

Shabbat Chayey Sarah: Mind Your Language

The reading from the Torah this week starts off with Avraham burying Sarah his wife in “The Cave of Machpelah” which he buys from the Hittites who were living there at that time. Read more

Hostages

We are in the midst of a horrendous hostage crisis. Kidnapping is such a fundamental crime that it is one of the Ten Commandments. Read more

Shabbat Vayeyra: Who is Sodom today?

Can a whole society be corrupt? Surely, some people must be able to see when things begin to go wrong, or peer pressure is just too powerful to resist. Read more

Universalism and Tribalism

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Shabbat Lech Lecha: Bad people and good

We are living under conditions that remind us of how much we Jews can be hated and to what extremes our enemies can go in order to express such hatred. Read more

Noah, Hamas and Evil

Why did we celebrate Simchat Torah? Read more

Shabbat Bereishit: United We Stand

We will start reading the Torah from the beginning again this week. Read more

Benjamin Disraeli and Sucot

I have always admired Rabbi Marc Angel. He is the Emeritus Rabbi of Congregation Shearith Yisrael, the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in New York a position he has held since 1969. Read more

Succot: Fun or Politics

Succot is the most innovative and multifaceted of all our Festivals. Coming after the solemn Holy Days it is the most fun, too. And it concludes with a day of national unity, something that seems as unlikely and remote now, as it ever did in the past. Read more

Jonah

The Book of Jonah is only forty-eight verses long, but it is one of the most popular books of the Bible. Read more

Days of pain and joy

We are now in the Jewish month of Elul. In the Northern Hemisphere, we say goodbye to the ‘lazy hazy crazy days of summer’, as the song goes. Pleasure is over, back to business. Read more

Shabbat Nitzavim and Vayeylech: Secrets

This week’s Torah includes this sentence. “The hidden ( secrets) belong to our God and the revealed things are for us and our children forever. To carry out all the words of this Torah” (Deuteronomy 29:28). Read more

Clive Marks ז״ל Lamed Vavnik

In my long life in Jewish affairs, I have met very few prominent public figures who were or are righteous in the true sense. Read more

Shabbat Ki Tavo: The Land of Israel

“When you enter the land that your God is giving you as a heritage, and you possess it and settle in it, you shall take the first fruit of the soil, which you harvest from the land that your God giving you, and put them in a basket and go to the place that God chooses and to the priest in charge at that time and say to him, “I acknowledge this day before your God that I have entered the land that swore to our fathers to assign us.” ( Deuteronomy 26:1-2). Read more

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