This is JLBC’s second Rosh Hashanah in print, and we are grateful that so many of you responded to us with great enthusiasm and a sense of participation and community. We have much to celebrate, including all our neighbors in Bergen County and beyond. We thank those who have contributed their articles, thoughts and letters to make this a neighborhood newspaper with national and international accents.

We hope that our coverage of the community and Israel offer stories that are often overlooked. Our most popular sections are schools and sports, which highlight our children and make us so proud. And as curators and originators of content, we try our best to provide you with material that covers topics and issues that inform, enlighten, and perhaps even motivate. We do not shy away from confronting some tough issues in the community…ranging from heavy duty family issues like domestic violence and abuse, and the high cost of maintaining an Orthodox lifestyle, to myriad religious issues. That means examining rabbinical authority; interpretations of Halacha and Mesorah; looking at traditions, philosophy and theology, and particularly the effects of popular culture on Contemporary Orthodoxy.

In this Rosh Hashanah issue we offer a special “food for thought” supplement with a discussion of “Whither Modern Orthodoxy?” We chose the articles for the wide range they offer in perspectives that are often not shared under one “roof.” We suggest you begin with Prof. Atina Grossmann for context sociology and history. Her article explains how the Holocaust and popular culture shaped many of those who are in leadership positions today, in Orthodoxy, Judaism generally, and the secular world, particularly in New York City. The next article we recommend is Dr.  Jack Wertheimer’s, a long excursive piece which first appeared in Mosaic, and was published in conjunction with Rabbi Barry Freundel’s rejoinder, which should be your next read. Top it off with Rabbi Alan Brill’s response when he returned from Katmandu and read the civil exchange on Mosaic.

We hope you will find “Food for Thought” particularly interesting, and invite you to debate the issues in our newspaper, along with offering comments on other articles we publish in the pages of the Jewish Link throughout the coming year.

Kesiva ve Chasima Tova to all!