Moshe Feinstein.

Halakhah for Americans

Asked in a 1975 New York Times interview how he had acquired his standing as America's most trusted authority in Jewish religious law (halakhah), Rabbi Moshe Feinstein (1895-1986) replied: ''If people see that one answer is good and another answer is good, gradually you will be accepted."

Rabbi Moses Feinstein  Norma Baumel Joseph,  Jewish Women’s Archive.  Many of Feinstein's rulings responded to and profoundly affected the lives of women. (With an extensive bibliography of secondary works.)  SAVE

Responsa and the Art of Writing  Mark Washofsky,  An American Rabbinate.  Occupying a middle ground between formalism and realism, the legal writings of Moshe Feinstein are examples of intuitive interpretation anchored in a literary text.  SAVE

So That One May Live  Moshe Feinstein, Moshe Tendler,  JLaw.  A summary translation and annotation by Feinstein's son-in-law of his 1977 authorization of surgery to separate infant Siamese twins, sacrificing one.  SAVE

Our Ethiopian Kin  Shmarya Rosenberg,  Failed Messiah.  In a 1984 responsum on the halakhic status of Ethiopian Jews, Feinstein expresses anguish that some have refused to embrace them because of their skin color.  SAVE

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Mark Zuckerberg.

Jewish Philanthropy 2.0

Jewish mega-donors are hardly news. It is also a commonplace that wealthy Jews allocate less than 25 percent of their giving to specifically Jewish causes. Of the two facts, the latter has understandably puzzled and frustrated fund raisers for Jewish causes. But is it really so mysterious?

The 50  Chronicle of Philanthropy.  A list of the top American philanthropists and some of their causes.  SAVE

Mega-Givers and Their Giving  Gary A. Tobin, Aryeh K. Weinberg,  Institute for Jewish & Community Research.  American Jews are uniquely philanthropic, but where does the big money go? (PDF)  SAVE

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Haim Amsalem.

The Seed of Israel

Until modern times, the boundaries of Jewish identity were cut and dried. If you were born to a Jewish mother, or if you were a convert according to Jewish religious law (halakhah), you were Jewish. If not, you weren't.

Rabbi. Parliamentarian. Heretic?  David Horovitz,  Jerusalem Post.  "There is no monopoly on Torah": an interview with Haim Amsalem.  SAVE

Helping Israel's Image  Dina Kraft,  Jewish Telegraphic Agency.  In Spain, descendants of forced converts learn about their Jewish heritage and how to become voices for Israel in their communities.    SAVE

A Credo for Conversion  Irving Greenberg,  Jewish Ideas Daily.  An American modern-Orthodox rabbi would synthesize traditional requirements of the law with a principled openness to converts who will not become fully Orthodox.   SAVE

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Law and Morality

Are ethics and law at odds? Does the law define what is ethical, or do ethical concerns have their own purchase on the law? These questions, universally applicable, have special relevance to a religious culture like Judaism, whose traditional law is embodied in the vast corpus of halakhah.

Falsifying Jewish Law  Michael Abraham,  Ynet.  A declaration signed by dozens of Israeli rabbis, banning the sale or rental of residences to non-Jews, was legally flawed, morally reckless, and a desecration of God's name.  SAVE

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Baruch Spinoza.

Secularism and Its Discontents

The transformations of Jewish life in the last two-and-a-half centuries still boggle the mind. Deep ruptures opened to separate the present from the past, modernity from tradition, setting terms that have defined the contours of Jewish life until today. How did people try to think their way through the change?

Is Jewish Secularism Possible?  Rebecca Goldstein,  MyJewishLearning/Bronfman Foundation.  Secular Jewishness can ground itself in the extraordinary contributions that the Jewish people have made and have yet to make to human flourishing as a whole.  SAVE

Rethinking Secularism  David N. Myers,  University of Pennsylvania Library.  An online exhibition devoted to the complex interplay between the religious and the secular in modern Jewish history.  SAVE

An Incomplete Sketch  Yehouda Shenhav,  Haaretz.  A new Hebrew encyclopedia of Jewish secularism suffers from intellectual thinness and ideological blinders.  SAVE

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