This week’s essay is dedicated to the memory of my dear neighbor, Dr. Jacob Mozak who would have been 100 years old this week. 1913, one hundred years ago, is the subject of a very interesting book entitled, “1913: In Search of the World Before The Great War,” by Charles Emmerson [Public Affairs, 2013]. Designed as a city-by-city survey of events prominent to each that year, the author gives us a unique historical panorama of a world on the brink of a military and political disaster. more

In our post feminist world, a case in Devarim 22 is very troubling. After consummating his marriage, a man finds that he hates his wife. Instead of following the Torah’s instruction for how to absolve a marriage through divorce (as described in Devarim 24), he chooses to invent charges against her that she was unfaithful, most likely to get out of having to pay her Ketubah. To save a few shekels, he tries to destroy her reputation. more

For the last 12 years, while I called Brooklyn my home, I referred to myself as an Englishman in New York, as I was born and raised in Manchester. That changed Wednesday, when I become a full-fledged Yankee in the Federal courthouse in Brooklyn. more

There is a strange little village alongside one of Israel’s borders that I came across on one of my reserve duty stints. Without detailing, for obvious reasons, its location, it was a curious place because I could not figure out how on earth it came to be in such a strange place. Any history buff who studies anthropology readily discovers that there are always historical, geographical and often economic reasons that will explain the nature of a city’s location and growth, and whenever I was on reserve duty in different corners of Israel, I always enjoyed my own secret game of sleuth, trying to uncover the mystery of how local villages came to be situated wherever they were. more

For as far back as I can remember, I have heard rabbis and community leaders utilize such catch phrases in public lectures as “We must stem the tide of assimilation!” and “Intermarriage rates are skyrocketing!” more

It must be August, because everyone is off on their last hurrah vacation trips before the kids come home from camp and the Yomim Tovim start. This past Shabbat, my husband Jerry regaled us with his travel plans that took place in 1975 during the summer after his sophomore year at YU. more

This week we celebrate Rosh Chodesh, the beginning of Elul, the month that leads up to Rosh Hashanah. In four weeks we will stand before G-d in judgment, and we will ask for a good year. One of the central prayers of the day makes abundantly clear the fact that on this day, at the beginning of the New Year, our fate is determined: “Who will live and who will die? Who in their time, and who in an untimely (young?) manner? Who (will die this year) by fire and who by water? … Like the shepherd whose flock pass beneath His staff, (G-d) passes His sheep (us) beneath his rod (club?)…” more

Among the handful of world leaders who could always be relied upon to support the United States unstintingly, the name of Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, stands out. Blair energetically advocated for American engagement and warned of the negative global consequences of an America in retreat. In April 1999, at the height of the NATO operation against the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo by Serbian forces, Blair, in a speech to the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, said: “We cannot turn our backs on conflicts and the violations of human rights in other countries if we want to be secure.” more

On the last night of the cruise to Alaska my wife and I enjoyed last week, we stayed in and watched the movie Spiderman that was playing on my cabin TV. Watching the movie, it occurred to me that Spiderman’s boss, Daily Bugle publisher J. Jonah Jameson, is a perfect example of what I always imagined a manager to be when I was growing up: a gruff, cigar chomping, get the job done without caring whose feelings were hurt, type of guy. more

I can still hear the blast ringing in my ears, still hear the screams of the wounded, and still see the horrible images of that terrible afternoon. I still get a lump in my throat when thinking of Chana Nechenberg, a young wife and mother who has been in a coma these past ten years, or of Malki Roth, a 15 year girl full of so much life who is still, ten years later, a 15 year old girl, because she never reached her 16th birthday. more