Author: David Rutman

Sacha Baron Cohen is one of the comic geniuses of our time. The British born comedian became known in America with HBO’s “Da Ali G Show.” Wearing a doo-rag, sunglasses, and pretending to be totally stupid, Ali G would he ask Donald Trump what he thought of an ice-cream glove, made Andy Rooney of “60 […]

At the Goldrich Cultural Center at The Grove in Los Angeles, music will tell a story that spans generations, continents and some of the darkest chapters in Jewish history. On Nov. 4 and 5, countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen, baritone and cantorial soloist Simon Barrad, and pianist and music director Ronny Michael Greenberg will take the […]

Leftist mainstream media outlets piled on this week to express outrage at my observation, during a speech in Grand Rapids for Mike Rogers, about the troubling dearth of scientific output from the world’s 22 Arab nations over the past five decades. These reporters — @fatimathefatima @AP, @Kanishka183 @Reuters, @rachel_roubein @washingtonpost, @baylisswagner @nytimes, @stevebenen @MSNOWNews — […]

Last April, Rabbi Joel Rembaum lost Fredi, his wife of 61 years, to cancer. How does one recover? “There’s no secret, no single answer,” the retired longtime leader of Temple Beth Am said. “Relationships take different forms, operate differently, according to individuals’ own characteristics.  “It’s hard,” the rabbi said. “I can talk about elements that helped […]

In 2026, you don’t expect an  American movie – even a documentary – to include an almost Talmudic discussion focusing on the meaning of the word “can.” But it’s a critical scene in “You Can See Everything,” the hit documentary (co-directed by Jewish filmmakers Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim) that follows Elizabeth Holmes, the creator […]

Who could have written this script? The most condemned nation on earth, the one accused of a genocide against an Arab population, holds a national election and its own Arab population can determine who will lead the country. Let that sink in. The country accused of apartheid against Arabs empowers Arabs to directly influence its […]

I was up most of the night inhaling everything I could on tomorrow’s elections in Israel. It only made me more anxious. “Destiny awaits at the ballot box,” “The most momentous day in the battle for Israel,” were some of the stories that greeted me. Indeed, this is a defining, momentous day in Israel’s history. […]

Lech Lecha. Go forth. If there are two Hebrew words that every reader of the Bible should know, they are these. The opening words of God’s call to Abraham and a summons that changed not only biblical history but our understanding of what it means to be human. The plain meaning is straightforward. Plucked from obscurity […]

At the beginning of “An Introduction to Medieval Jewish Philosophy,” Daniel Rynhold tells the following anecdote: “Sometime in the 1990s, a philosophy department with which I was involved held a meeting at which candidates for admission were being reviewed. A colleague noted that a young woman who had been admitted believed in God, prompting another […]

When Abraham is told to journey to an unknown land, God tells him that in doing so, his name will be great. The Talmud explains this phrase through association. Abraham’s name will be great by being associated with God. The greatness will continue as God is also paired with the patriarchs, Isaac and Jacob. We […]