Elli Fischer
By Elli Fischer
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Yiddish World Why the rabbi cursed his congregation
Read this article in Yiddish Last September, the Forward published an article about a very curious incident in 1926, in which the rabbi of a Yonkers Orthodox synagogue opened the aron kodesh, the ornamental closet in the synagogue housing the Torah scrolls, and cursed the congregation. The author of that article, Nancy Klein, whose parents…
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Life A Pittsburgh Rabbi’s 1908 Sermon Rings Eerily True Today
Rabbi Moshe Shimon Sivitz served as the Chief (Orthodox) Rabbi of Pittsburgh from the last decade of the 19th century until his death in 1936. Born in Lithuania and trained in its yeshivot, he was renowned both for his Talmudic erudition and for his clever and occasionally abrasive homilies. He was a “rabbi’s rabbi”, publishing…
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Opinion Want To Know ‘Who Is A Jew’? Ask: ‘Who Is The Gatekeeper’
The question of “Who is a Jew,” which has been inflaming passions for so long, has recently heated up once again. Almost every day seems to bring news stories that hinge on what qualifies a person to claim Jewish identity. Whether it’s Julia Salazar relying on family lore to claim she is a Jew of…
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Life What You’re Getting Wrong About Abortion And Judaism
The nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court has brought to the fore the question of his attitudes toward abortion and the possibility of overturning Roe v. Wade, a key Supreme Court decision on this issue. Predictably, opposition to Kavanaugh aligns with a “pro-choice” position and with Democratic partisanship, whereas support for Kavanaugh…
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Life What The Talmud Says About Fathers And Children
If you open the Talmud, to the first chapter of Kiddushin, you’ll find that it has plenty to say about how to treat one’s parent — a fitting reading for Father’s Day. Fear or Reverence? Four of the Torah’s commandments address how children must behave toward their parents. Most famously, the Ten Commandments: “Honor your…
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