Author: David Rutman

“We must learn to recognize that as long as we lack a home of our own, such as the other nations have, we must resign forever the noble hope of becoming the equals of our fellow men,” wrote Leon Pinsker in “Auto-Emancipation” in 1882, a text often regarded as the opening salvo of the Zionist […]

US President Donald Trump warned that Washington would respond militarily if Iranian authorities killed demonstrators, as anti-regime protests spread across multiple cities in Iran and have already become deadly.   In a post on Truth Social, President Trump said the United States was prepared to act if protesters were harmed by the Iranian government. “If Iran […]

During a reunion at Habonim Dror’s Camp Tavor in Chicago, a woman approached Michelle Azar and told her she had a fascinating life story. Azar jokingly replied, “I have a show about it – ‘From Baghdad to Brooklyn.’” At the time, the actress and singer, who is married to Rabbi Jonathan Aaron, didn’t actually have […]

Do you dip apples and challah in honey for a sweet new calendar year? Maybe it’s time to start.  As Jews, we get to celebrate New Years twice! Whether you kick off the year in the fall, during the High Holy Days, or via the traditional calendar in January — or both — each comes […]

There’s something about hating things that makes me feel alive. I’ll see a post on X about, say, another nasty case of Jew-hatred, and I’ll get all riled up. It makes me feel like doing something. I feel useful. Sometimes I’ll even write a column. This attachment to negative stuff is not something I’m proud […]

In a year marked by rising antisemitism and an alarming resurgence of Holocaust distortion, one of the most chilling artifacts of the Shoah has quietly emerged into public view—this time, as a weapon against denial rather than a remnant of it. Businessman and philanthropist Elliott Broidy has acquired one of only two known surviving original […]

When my children were born, I assumed teaching them Torah would be easy. After all, I have a PhD in Talmud and am married to a rabbi. I worried about plenty of things—sleep schedules, tantrums, and other typical toddler woes—but Jewish education? That seemed simple. How wrong I was. As my children entered preschool, I […]

Jew-haters must have felt some ambivalence after 6 million Jews perished in the Holocaust. How are we going to demonize these guys now? I thought about those Jew-haters as I watched scenes of mangled Jewish bodies in the must-see film “Nuremberg.” The Holocaust was so horrific some argue that the Jews got an unofficial “reprieve” […]