The Lost Ark

So many people love conspiracy theories, fantasies, and lost causes. Read more

Purim or Poor Them

Purim is the happiest and craziest day in the Jewish calendar and the only festival that celebrates an event in the Diaspora. But is it really? Read more

Darkness

It is almost a year since we first got an inclining of the disastrous Covid19. No one, not even the holy World Health Organization had any idea of how serious it was or how it would spread with it so much death, pain, and gloom. Read more

The greatest rabbi in the West

In the latest edition of the Brooklyn Jewish journal  Hakirah, there is a fascinating article on Rav Joseph Ber Soloveitchik (1903 -1993) by David. P. Goldman entitled The Rav’s Uncompleted Grand Design. Read more

Louis Jacobs

Any Anglo Jew from the 1960s will be familiar with the “Jacobs Affair” that divided the Jewish community more than any other religious debate in its history. Read more

Hard-hearted

My last blog was intentionally controversial. The aim was to point out that people rarely seem capable of hearing, let alone absorbing another point of view. Read more

The cuckoo coup

What a year America has had. To add to the scourge of Covid19, we have seen the self-destruction of a President and we are witnessing a serious degradation in the values of American society. There is no humility, no grace, no dignity, and no sense of humanity. Read more

Modesty

Democracy is the best form of government we have because it tries to resolve issues through respectful debate and dialogue, not through violence or coercion. Which of course applies equally to the Left and to the Right. Read more

Twelfth Night

As a child, I liked to feel how fortunate I was to have eight days of Chanukah, whereas the non-Jews only had one day. But then I learned that was not quite correct, they had twelve. In theory at least. Read more

Hasmonean Women

I realize what a patriarchal society we, like the rest of the world, have been until very recently. Read more

The Zohar

The Festival of Chanukah (however you spell it in English) in addition to its historical origins, is also a celebration of the long mystical tradition in Judaism. Read more

Obama and Israel

Former President Obama is regarded as something of a saint. His voice is the gospel of the Democratic and academic constituency of the USA. Read more

The myths of Chanukah

There are several myths about Chanukah. That Judah Maccabee defeated the Seleucid Emperor Antiochus decisively and regained independence for the Judean state. That when Judah did regain control of the Temple, a miracle took place. Read more

A lesson from history

I have been reading about The Hundred Years’ War between France and England by Jonathan Sumption the well-known and controversial barrister, former member of the Supreme Court of Great Britain. Read more

Napoleon and Macron

I have always been fascinated by Napoleon Bonaparte (in French it is Napoléon). Read more

Kristallnacht

The 9^th of November was the anniversary of the Kristallnacht attack on the Jews of Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland in 1938. Read more

Abraham’s children

Anyone familiar with the art of Cathedrals and Churches in Europe will know that someone called Melchizedek figures prominently. Who was he? Read more

The rainbow and Halloween

After Noah’s flood, God gave the rainbow as a sign that never again would humanity be destroyed because of its failings. Read more

Angela Buxton and Althea Gibson

In my youth, Angela Buxton was the darling of the Anglo Jewish sporting scene. Read more

Adam and Eve

It is Adam and Eve time again in the annual Torah reading cycle. Read more

The error of piety

One of the most disturbing features of the pandemic has been the behaviour of huge swathes of the Charedi community across the globe. Read more

Succot and the world

Rituals, laws, and customs exist to reinforce the fact that ideas are all very well, but we need actions to bring about change within ourselves and the world at large. We are individual organisms that think and feel. But we are not alone. Read more

What’s the pointing of fasting?

Here are some of my thoughts on the significance of Yom Kippur. Read more

Repentance

We are in the season of repentance. But what actually does repentance mean? What does it do? If repentance is intended to change us, make us better people, it does not appear to work. Read more

Betrayal

The culture wars are raging around us. Anything or one who is unacceptable to the Culture Police is to be banned, silenced, and censored. Read more

How to deal with racism

I want to look at the current debate about racism from the point of view and the premise that prejudice or discrimination, simply on the basis of skin colour goes against every fundamental in Judaism. No significant rabbinic authority has ever suggested otherwise. Read more

The Rebbe and Sociology

There is no shortage of books that extol the influence and charisma of the late Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Read more

Finding Love

Did you know that there is an ancient tradition that on two days in the year, unmarried girls used to go out dancing in the vineyards around Jerusalem in order to find a marriage partner? Read more

Jerusalem reborn

The Jerusalem I first came to in 1958 was a very different and much smaller town than the Jerusalem of nearly one million it is today. Read more

An Even Worse Mess

On the Seventeenth of Tammuz, we began the period known as the Three Weeks that culminate in the fast of the Ninth of Av ( this coming Wednesday night). Read more

« Previous Page — Next Page »