On Tuesday, November 5 ^th, the New Jersey Jewish community will have an opportunity to show its strength to elected officials and political parties around the state. On that day, every state office from the governor through the State Legislature is up for grabs. On that day, we have the ability to do something that is granted to every citizen in New Jersey,

The year was 2006, and as we sat in the backseat of a town car driving through North Beverly Hills, Rabbi Grossman watched in amazement as a machine was talking to the driver.

“What is this machine called?” asked the Rav.

“A GPS”, he was told. Having no Internet or TV in his home, much less a GPS in his own car, Rabbi Grossman was star-struck,

Part II:

In the first part of this article, I presented some ideas as to the origins of racism, discussed some problematic statements in the Talmud and suggested why those statements should not be used as models for public discourse today.  In this continuation, I will present some other Talmudic statements and suggest how we, as individuals and as a group

Women of the Wall (WoW) was founded 25 years ago as a women’s minyan at the Western Wall to meet on the first of every Jewish month. A few years ago, some of WoW’s leaders started getting arrested for wearing non-“feminine” (read: colorful) talitot and tefillin in violation of a 2003 Israeli Supreme Court ruling. In April 2013, this ruling was deemed to be

The government shutdown that took effect on October 1 crippled our nation, soured our resolve and imperiled our nation’s status quo. The gridlock that forced the closure of government facilities and furloughed federal workers did not just bring America to a standstill, it brought us to a standoff.

We are all aware that partisanship has regrettably become a

Every scientist will tell you that the only way to do a successful experiment is to have a control group. As we know, new drugs are tested with a control group getting a placebo, to test whether the new drug delivers as expected. The recently released Pew Study provides a control group for the Orthodox community to measure the implications of decisions made over 40

Meylekh Viswanath will be running in the NYC Marathon on November 3 to raise money for victims of terror in Israel through the One Family Fund.  If you are interested in being a sponsor, please go to http://www.teamonefamily.org/plachikkatviswanath.  You can get more information about the One Family

Cattle prods, beatings, extortion, blackmail, revenge, and most of all money, are at the heart of the latest agunah-related scandal. Mendel Epstein, with his long white beard and saintly look, and a rosh yeshiva from Monsey, Martin Wolmark, took hundreds of thousands of dollars from desperate agunot—whose recalcitrant husbands threatened them with

In a survey done in Israel and released last summer, the Geocartography Research Institute of the Ruth and Emanuel Rackman Center for the Advancement of the Status of Women at Bar-Ilan University found that 50 percent of harediwomen in Israel are threatened with getextortion. The survey’s potential sampling error is 5.5 percent with a 95 percent

Like a classic Kansas tornado in early summer, the statistics left a path of destruction in their wake that would make the heartiest of storm-chasers gawk in amazement. The recent data on “Jewish Identity” released by the world famous Pew Research Center has shocked many, prodding expert after expert to chime in with their take on what the results mean for

Two children, a brother and sister, are fighting: calling each other names, bringing each other to tears. Their father stays out of it at first. He’s hoping his kids will work things out on their own, but they don’t. The bickering escalates until the father finally throws them into a time-out. He wants his children to think about what they’ve done. He

We are all familiar with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. One of the central parts of the tale is when the wicked stepmother, in a fit of jealousy, decides that Snow White must be eliminated. She disguises herself as a pleasant old woman and puts a poisoned apple in her basket. Despite Snow White’s reluctance to open the door, the evil stepmother convinces