Author: David Rutman

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” […]

Dear all, Growing up, I often felt awkward when someone wished me “Merry Christmas.” Do I gently explain that I don’t celebrate? Do I reply with “Happy Holidays”? Do I simply say “Merry Christmas” back and move on? For years, there was no answer that felt quite right. Ironically, it wasn’t until I spent a […]

“If we’re going to run another story about a topic that has by now been much-covered we need to advance it,” CBS editor in chief Bari Weiss wrote in a letter to her producers explaining her decision to shelve a “Sixty Minutes” segment. The segment, titled “Inside CECOT,” reported on the Trump administration’s controversial deportation […]

On the third night of Chanukah, I sat in our living room in front of our menorah, placed right up against our large picture window. It’s where we light every year, as our tradition calls for: we publicize this miracle. We want the world to see our small but mighty lights. Small and mighty, like […]