Author: David Rutman

It has been a busy time for combatants and spectators in the campus free speech wars. As I was drafting a comment about the University of Michigan, we got word that Northwestern University President Emeritus Morton Schapiro canceled his plan to deliver an invited address and receive an honorary degree from Georgetown University Law School, […]

We arrived in Morocco feeling a bit anxious. With everything happening with Iran and throughout the region, many of us wondered: was it safe to be here now? Yet the StandWithUs Jewish Heritage Mission to Morocco generated tremendous interest and filled up almost immediately. In fact, there were additional people who wanted to come, who […]

In 1835, the Chatam Sofer, Rabbi Moses Sofer, received the following question: Regarding the shochet (ritual slaughterer) Michael Raab, who serves in a local village. He met a well-respected man, the honorable Rabbi Michael Pashkez from your esteemed congregation. Raab mocked Rabbi Pashkez by telling him that his wife had given birth to a son, […]

For as long as I can remember, I watch the Israel Prize ceremony, which comes at the end of Israel Independence Day. The ceremony is always inspiring; the style is usually strait-laced and serious. An anecdotal poll among my friends revealed that I was not the only one who sensed the atmosphere in the ceremony […]

There truly are the righteous, those who have a conscience, who think not of their personal safety, but about what is right and just, who are humane and compassionate. Even in these trying times, they are among us today. They always have been — so great that they did not even think that what they […]

So much keeps happening around the world daily—and the brainwashing spin cycle of social media is so distracting—it’s difficult to glean the significance of certain events, especially when they converge. And if you’re singularly obsessed with Donald Trump—whether as a die-hard America Firster, a brainless Bolshevik, or a gullible, needy Jew clinging to the cool […]

A rabbi whose mother is an athiest might sound like a pitch for a sit-com, but for Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson, it was his reality. His mother, now a retired psychotherapist, does not believe in God. But there is a happy ending. The rabbi, who is set to become American Jewish University’s Mordechai Kaplan Distinguished […]

Rabbi Cheryl Peretz has accepted the position of interim dean of American Jewish University’s Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies, effective July 1. A longtime leader at Ziegler, Peretz has served the Ziegler School for 25 years, most recently as vice dean, where she has played a central role in academic leadership, student formation and faculty […]