By Linda Gradstein, JTA
• Published February 1, 2012
JERUSALEM—When Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, granted a few hundred haredi Orthodox Jews an exemption from army service, it's likely he never dreamed that 63 years later, tens of thousands of haredi Israelis would claim the exemption—or...
SYDNEY, Australia—Two Torah scrolls were dedicated in Victoria's state parliament before being led through the streets by the Commonwealth's Chief Rabbi,Lord Jonathan Sacks, to Melbourne's oldest functioning synagogue. Sunday morning's service celebrated...
The suspension of Amsterdam's chief rabbi for signing a statement on "curing" homosexuality is "verging on fascism," a committee of Orthodox Jews told a Dutch newspaper. The Committee for the Declaration on the Torah Approach to Homosexuality said in...
The cascade of condemnations started pouring in almost as soon as the Israeli TV report aired. Its subject was an 8-year-old girl harassed by Haredi men on the way to her Modern Orthodox girls' school in the Jerusalem suburb of Beit Shemesh. The Israeli...
BY RABBI JUSTIN KERBER
• Published January 4, 2012
I noticed something peculiar in the story of our ancestor Jacob's young adult life. "And G!d went up from him." (Gen. 35:13) It looked almost as if God "lifted off" from him. Could it really be, I wondered, that with the ending of Jacob's conflicts with...
By Rabbi Yonason Goldson
• Published January 4, 2012
On March 16, 1968, soldiers of the 1st Battalion's Charlie Company committed one of the most notorious war crimes in American history when they brutally massacred over 300 villagers in the Vietnamese hamlet of My Lai. Was every soldier in the American...
By Rabbi Brad Horwitz
• Published December 21, 2011
Hanukkah is often referred to as the Festival of Lights. We add one candle to the Hanukkah menorah each of the eight nights of Hanukkah to commemorate the miraculous victory of the Macabees as well as the miracle of the small cruse of oil that lasted...
By David Baugher, Special to the Jewish Light
• Published December 7, 2011
Boaz Genut has been back in Israel since 2006 but sometimes he still sounds like a St. Louisan. "Someone picked me up from the airport and was a little confused on how to go. I said just take 170 south and I'll direct you from there," laughed the rabbi,...
By Rabbi Justin S. Kerber
• Published December 7, 2011
Less than a week before the start of the Jewish New Year, Erev Rosh Hashanah, our family was blessed with a new baby. Amid the joy of this fall, as we have entered him into the Covenant of Abraham and formally named him after beloved family members we...
As the Torah portion Vayetzei (Gen. 28:10 - 32:3) opens, our spiritual ancestor, Jacob, is running from his brother, Esau's, wrath after obtaining his brother's birthright blessing by trickery. Jacob makes camp, and has an amazing dream: angels are going...
By Rabbi James Stone Goodman
• Published November 23, 2011
Isaac entreats God, and God is entreated. Same verb, different structure. It is one of the words we encounter in Torah that is considered prayer.The same root, transitive and reflexive. Isaac entreats God, and God is entreated. We cannot actually translate...
St. Louis Torah Mitzion Kollel (TMK) will hold a Gala 9th Anniversary Dinner at 8 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 3 at Clayton High School Commons, 1 Mark Twain Circle in Clayton.Honorees at the dinner will be Rav Boaz Genut, the founding Shaliach of St. Louis TMK...
