Yeshiva College has also changed along with the broader landscape of higher education. We still have impressively bright, industrious, passionate students. But as the culture of the mid-twentieth century was replaced by that of the[…]
…what has to change in the world of Jewish philanthropy and fundraising to make the system less beholden to deformed power structures. Ironically, one of the shifts that Lila points out and critiques – towards[…]
Birthright Israel, the nonprofit organization that Steinhardt started in 1999 with his billionaire friend Charles Bronfman to fund free trips to Israel for young Jews, epitomizes this shift. From its financing to its goals, Birthright[…]
Until he was brought down by revelations of decades of sexual harassment, sociologist Steven M. Cohen made a career linking intermarriage with a coming demographic doomsday for non-Orthodox Jews and propounding the danger both posed[…]
…halakha is currently paying a steep price for Orthodoxy’s exclusion of the queer community. Halakha’s *discriminatory attitude toward the gay community alienates many of MO’s younger generation. It could very well be that halakha is[…]
Modern Orthodoxy is hard to understand and harder to live. Orthodoxy is a set of views and behaviors that is governed by precedent and authority. It is most comfortable with stasis. Change irritates the system,[…]
For far too long, we have overly praised volunteers for bringing outside expertise to our organizations, while underinvesting in the ongoing professional development of the individuals that work in the field full time. While some[…]
One of the greatest paradoxes of “the American Jewish establishment” is that it is only believed to really exist by those who fear or despise it, to whom it is a rhetorically helpful bogeyman. Inside[…]
…while Jewish organizations should be allowed to exercise caution about their overt structural partnerships with those protesting them outside, the quick mapping of that caution onto the tarring of individuals is a dangerous and insidious[…]
…a larger political phenomenon in the Jewish community…on the disincentivizing of all forms of “courageous leadership” by relatively small numbers of individuals who can drive a community agenda because of the flattening of power structures,[…]