Author: David Rutman

It’s never too late to consider lessons of the Torah. For the Biblical holiday of Shavuos which celebrates the Israelites receiving the Torah, Jews read the biblical Book of Ruth, a pastoral love story set in ancient Israel. If not for the last five verses of the last chapter (4:17-22) which state that Ruth was […]

Here’s the best-kept secret about the World Cup, the soccer tournament that comes every four years and holds much of the world’s attention. From little villages in Africa to small towns in South America to distant reaches of the Far East to the world’s most glamorous cities, the “Mondiale” is that rare event that truly […]

A year ago, B-2 stealth bombers and “bunker busting” bombs attacked three nuclear sites in Iran. Whether the primary aim of the U.S. action was to help Israel, or to eliminate the potential threat posed by a nuclear-armed Iran to world order, is a moot point. However, there is no doubt about the meaning of […]

Most of us understand what America gave the Jews. Batya Ungar-Sargon knows what the Jews gave America. After almost two thousand years of exile, America became the place where Jews achieved genuine freedom. America not only offered unparalleled economic opportunity, but separated church and state, and prohibited religious tests for office. And while it has struggled to live up to […]

In their final days as co-leaders of Hamakom synagogue in West Hills, Rabbis Stewart Vogel and Richard Camras had to repeatedly explain to community members that they were not retiring in the traditional sense — and they were definitely not leaving. June 30 was their final fulltime day. Rabbi Camras described their new arrangement this […]

“There is something about defining a problem as you see it, and thinking that you’ve defined it accurately, that leads you to expect that perhaps that is the solution to the problem,” author and scholar Ruth Wisse said this morning on the Commentary podcast. Wisse was discussing the re-release of her 1992 book, “If I […]

In California, the decision of residents to leave often begins with a spreadsheet: rising rent, escalating taxes, the slow squeeze of everyday expenses. For many, the answer is a quieter life in Nevada or Texas, where space is more affordable and the pace a little more forgiving. But for Dorraine Gilbert Weiss, 80, and her […]

After a week in which Democrats nominated a slate of antizionists to Congress in a troika of New York City House races, it would be tempting to think that their party is now the greater threat to Israel and to the Jewish community in this country. But we were simultaneously reminded by Vice President JD […]

Happy 250th, America! What a gangbuster quarter-millennium of a resume you have assembled. Much to be proud of, and, yet . . . far too few Americans are lining up to blow out the candles. A revolutionary war brought independence from the British Empire, self-governance and the adoption of natural law. A war with Mexico […]

Poetica Coffee, a Brooklyn café, promises anyone who walks through its door “unconditional dignity.” Not as a customer and not as a transaction, the website explains, but as someone who arrived and deserves to be welcomed. Recently the same business posted a photograph of Rep. Dan Goldman, who had stopped in for a coffee, and […]