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The world of Jewish political enthusiasts was energized by the appearance of a fresh-faced young man, an online influencer, and an outspoken advocate and party to a lawsuit against the recent wave of anti-Semitism that has terrorized Jewish students at some of America’s finest and oldest universities. Shabbos (Shabsi) Alexander Kestenbaum, a recent graduate of […]

I can think of two stories about a Siddur. Naomi Grunfeld, daughter of the notable Dayan in London, penned a story about an old Roedelheim siddur, as she heard it from her mother, and put it in the Yated Ne’eman over a decade ago. The story is here, and a scan of the article is […]

Because I haven’t written in a long time and it is almost Purim, I want to put a few thoughts together. This year we observed Rav Schwab’s Yahrzeit on Purim Katan as it was in the year he passed away. Elsewhere I wrote a Remez beween Rav Schwab’s name and Lag B’omer (which is alluded to in the Rema […]

It feels like this month slipped away since so much of Elul was shared with the American summer vacation months. Until schools were underway (I am in Jewish Education), it was already a week until Rosh Hashanah. Let me add a note about our beautiful minahgim. We know that KAJ blows Shofar in Elul at Shacharis and Mincha. Three Tashrats are […]

A few months ago a very idealistic and dedicated woman in our community contacted me as she was preparing to give a tour of our Shul to a Modern Orthodox day school from a nearby suburb. She only asked for some media for her tour (photos of the past rabbonim), but I gave her a […]

(“Eretz” was the way many German Jews referred to Israel for short.) The story of Torah im Derech Eretz in Eretz Yisrael is a long and complex history that is bigger than me and this little blog.   Dr. Marc Shapiro – in his book on Rav Yechiel Y. Weinberg zt’l- recounts the story of the Hildesheimer seminary considering a […]

Tonight, in the neighborhood in which I now live, there will be bonfires to celebrate the Hilula Derashbi.  As children, we never heard about the Rabi Shimon element of Lag BeOmer. It was all about the talmidei Rabi Akiva and the bow & arrow games. Today ideas of kabbalah and chasidus have become more widely known and as we will become […]

See the picture above. This was Dad’s tefillin bag in an era when they looked like this. Because we share initials, I have begun using it for now.  On the recent Chol Hamo’ed, I davened in a local Brooklyn shul that davens Nusach Aschkenaz (Artscroll) and the Baal Tefilla wars Tefillin. I spent most of Davening counting the percentage of Tefillin wearers ad […]