American cultural history could probably be parcelled out as a sequence of sensational murder cases. There was nothing remotely “typical” about the Manson murders or, for that matter, about the O. J. Simpson case, but[…]
Continue reading …
“as the culture of the mid-twentieth century was replaced…, the notion of students grappling with their yeshiva and college educations…, producing a grand synthesis called ‘Modern Orthodoxy’, seemed increasingly quaint”
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[…]
Continue reading …
Bibi “has no true ideological home, so he has made his home the Prime Minister’s Office”
It’s a mistake to put Netanyahu in the same category as the strongmen riding Europe’s rightist wave. But it is not a mistake to say he learned their language and cultivated ties with them, some[…]
Continue reading …
“…some magical place where a total lack of any discernible talent or intelligence or interpersonal skills had never interfered with anyone’s success”
When it finally sunk in that I’m not the next Nabokov, I got pretty depressed for a while. I started to wish that there was some magical place where a total lack of any discernible[…]
Continue reading …
“I don’t see an end in sight to the massive private foundations dominating the Jewish philanthropic landscape, but there are definitely better ways forward”
…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[…]
Continue reading …
“Birthright Israel manifests the interlacing power of identity and endowment in American Jewish life”
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[…]
Continue reading …
“Cohen’s analysis focused simply on biological continuity and avoided the substantive questions inherent in any discussion of the how of the Jewish future”
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[…]
Continue reading …
“…halakha is currently paying a steep price for Orthodoxy’s exclusion of the queer community”
…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[…]
Continue reading …
“What gender critical feminism really amounts to is a baroque palace of rationalizations built on a foundation of pure disgust”
The term “gender critical” is really a euphemism recently created to replace TERF with a phrase that doesn’t have such negative connotations. It’s perfectly analogous to the phrase “race realist”, which was invented by racists[…]
Continue reading …
“…someone who provides empathy and understanding for an alleged victim does so without imposing a cost on anyone else. I believe the tension arises when the implications of believing an accusation means taking punitive action”
The default posture of “believing women” conflicts with conceptions of justice predicated on the presumption of innocence, and that guilt must be established beyond a reasonable doubt. In practice, this can shift the injustice from[…]
Continue reading …