Jeremy Rosen, Author at J-Wire

Israel Independence Day

Jeremy Rosen — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 00:12:38 +0000

The Jewish calendar has now entered the memorial season. We start with the Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah). But which one? The United Nations (ha, ha)? The Knesset, the Rabbinate, or none of these, just ongoing pain and loss? While the rest of the world wants to reframe it in terms of racial prejudice and […]

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Shabbat Tazria Metzora

Jeremy Rosen — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 09:02:24 +0000

Priest and Prophet These two combined portions of the Torah underline the important role of the priesthood in the personal lives of the Israelites, as well as the public ceremonial function of the sanctuaries, the Tabernacle, and then the Temple. Why was an institution like the priesthood such a disappointment over time? There seems to […]

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Zionism Today

Jeremy Rosen — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 07:46:10 +0000

Every year, there is an overload of Pesach newsletters and blogs, usually regurgitating everything we have heard before, rationally and mystically, about slavery, freedom and survival. Not to mention the constant challenge of being Jewish. So, for a change, I am re-sending a long article by someone else, whom I have never met, but I […]

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Pesach in every generation

Jeremy Rosen — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 06:11:08 +0000

Every year on Pesach at the Seder, we read “In every generation they stand against us to destroy us.” I may be cynical about politicians and political processes all over the world. But spiritually, mystically, Jewishly, I am optimistic. Indeed, the core themes of the Seder at Pesach and Jewish history are ones of an […]

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Shabbat Hagadol

Jeremy Rosen — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 07:23:16 +0000

Eliyahu “Behold I will send you Elijah (Eliyahu) the prophet before the great awesome Day of God and he will reconcile fathers to children and children to fathers” (Malachi 3:24). This is part of the Haftarah for Shabbat HaGadol, the Shabbat before Pesach. It is just one of the many reasons we have for why we call it Shabbat HaGadol. And it […]

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Brandolini’s Law

Jeremy Rosen — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 06:55:33 +0000

It was the historian Salo Wittmayer Baron who coined the phrase “The Oy Vay version of Jewish history.” Only looking at the bad and ignoring the glimpses of good. We are living through the most turbulent, challenging and frightening world that I have ever experienced. Rationally, I despair. Thank goodness I have a spiritual dimension […]

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Shabbat Vayikra

Jeremy Rosen — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 04:51:05 +0000

Semicha The term for rabbinic ordination is Semicha. It means laying hands on someone, which implies confidence, identification with the person, and the expectation of continuity in passing on the tradition. The word comes from the law mentioned here in the context of sacrifices, where one was commanded to place one’s hands on the head of […]

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Varieties of Judaism

Jeremy Rosen — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 06:59:34 +0000

We Jews have always liked to argue about religion and who is kosher and who is not. Often, these differences are far from civil. In every branch and variation of Judaism (as elsewhere), there are sects and extremes, iconoclasts and revisionists, insiders and outsiders. It pains me that we seem so incapable of overcoming such […]

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Shabbat Vayakhel Pekudei

Jeremy Rosen — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 06:47:19 +0000

Public and Private The double portion that we read from the Torah this week contains a lot of repetition, both about the construction of the Tabernacle and the dress and role of the priesthood. Subjects that a lot of space is devoted to in the Torah, and that have been out of use for most of our Jewish […]

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Little Things

Jeremy Rosen — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 04:51:04 +0000

When I was six years old, my father had founded Carmel College, and he moved the family into the English countryside west of London. The school initially only took pupils of a certain age. So, I was sent to a local Church of England village school with one teacher, located just outside the Carmel estate. […]

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