Author: David Rutman

Rabbi Dr. Denise Eger retired two years ago … and her life has been even busier than ever. After 37 years in Los Angeles one of the country’s most prominent and successful lesbian and gay leaders, Rabbi Eger stepped away. She moved to Austin, Texas, with her wife, Rabbi Eleanor Steinman, a native Angeleno who […]

Stop and smell the rosemary. “Little moments of joy make all the difference,” Jewish romance author Jean Meltzer (“The Matzah Ball,” “Kissing Kosher”) told the Journal. Last week, Meltzer, the founder of Jewish Joy LLC — which includes the Jewish Joy Book Club and the Jewish Joy Box — announced the inaugural Jewish Joy Con. […]

Last month Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the USS Harvey Milk, the Navy supply ship named after former San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk, would be re-named. The Secretary’s reasons were to “take the politics out of ship naming” and to “restore warrior culture.” Ironically, a review of naval traditions reveals that Hegseth’s action raises […]

“The consensus that held American Jewry together for generations is breaking down,” wrote Ezra Klein last Sunday in The New York Times, in a much-discussed essay titled, “Why American Jews No Longer Understand One Another.” The number one culprit in this breakdown? Israel, of course, and more specifically, Gaza, Gaza, Gaza. Klein touches on the […]

Happy days for Jew-haters came last week with a gargantuan op-ed in the New York Times—3,620 words in length—denouncing Israel’s war in Gaza with the damning title: “I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It.” The essay appeared in the paper of record that has an abysmal record of objectivity when it […]

The final elected choice for mayor of New York is months away, but the reverberations of the recent Democratic primary victory of Zohran Mamdani for the position spread far and wide. As Mamdani is a pro-Islamist Muslim Brotherhood sympathizer, it is urgent to examine what the possibilities are not just for New York, but for […]

When you’re under attack, the very first thing on your mind is to defend yourself. What’s the second thing? There is no second thing. There is only the urgency of swinging your fists and fighting off your attackers. The Jewish community has every reason these days to swing its fists. The attacks just keep coming: […]

“Eilu v’Eilu Divrei Elokim Chayim” — “These and those are the words of the Living G-d.”—Talmud, Eruvin 13b As a clinician, licensed social worker, Orthodox Jewish woman, and disabled professional, I live in a world where two seemingly contradictory truths must often coexist—sometimes uneasily. I can be highly educated and permanently disabled.I can be a […]

Aaron Clayton is a performance chef: a chef who prepares nutritionally focused meals for athletes. “We’re there to make sure that they’re able to perform on the field, the court, wherever it may be,” Clayton told the Journal. As most of Clayton’s athletes are not Jewish – they come from different backgrounds and cultures – […]