Rabbi Avi Shafran is a blogger, a columnist for the American edition of Hamodia, and serves as Agudath Israel of America’s director of public affairs. Twitter: @RabbiAviShafran
We identifiably Orthodox Jews are punched, swastikered, told we oppress women, we're not 'normal' Jews, that we don't 'fit in.' But when progressives debate Jewish identity and vulnerability – we're invisible
If Reform Jewish leaders were really honest with themselves, this is what they would say – acknowledging they’ve elevated their opposition to Orthodoxy far above grappling with the critical problems in their own house
I personally believe in the value of a comprehensive secular education for Orthodox Jews. But I defend the right of those who don't - not least when they're under sustained attack for their values
By defending standards of Orthodox Jewish conversion, Israel is ensuring it doesn't end up as divided and incoherent as the U.S. Jewish community
The Jewish Federations, who once championed Jewish unity, are now contributing to the alienation of the pro-Israel Orthodox Jews who are the future of the U.S. Jewish commmunity
When we talk up crank calls, minor threats to our community, are we American Jews actually playing into anti-Semites’ hands?
Orthodoxy’s startling demographic growth means the tide is turning for the famously liberal values, voting patterns and communal life generally associated with the U.S. Jewish community.
Forget a 'struggle for civil rights,' or 'liberating' the Wall. That's not the true reason for Reform and Conservative Jewish leaders' uncouth Kotel Crusade.
The absurd attempts to show the Torah embraces transgender rights are manifestly deficient to anyone familiar with the Jewish religious tradition.
Judaism is being co-opted into the abortion debate by both the right-to-life and right-to-choose factions, with predictably misleading results. But Orthodox Jews can’t feel truly comfortable in either camp.
When Reform leaders level veiled threats at Israel in the name of 'Diaspora Jewry' – accept our Judaism or else – they're not speaking for me nor for Orthodoxy, the real epicenter of Israel support in America.
When Stalin publicly 'disclosed' a plot, part of a vast conspiracy, led by Jews working for the United States, to kill him and destroy the Soviet Union, he followed up by building four giant prison camps for the USSR’s Jews. Only Purim stopped him.
Even if, as is likely, Trump never ends up coming for us American Jews, the fact that he's gone after others is, or should be, offensive enough.
We should not conflate the abhorrent murderers of the Dawabsheh family, those who celebrated their deaths at a wedding and the hilltop youth with all Jewish Orthodoxy.
There is no justification either for Palestinians incitement, or high-profile visits by Jewish 'activists' to the Temple Mount whose nationalist rush contributes to spilling innocent blood.
On the Jewish New Year, the moon – our measurer of time – goes missing. In its absence, we can go back in time to transform the wrong actions of yesterday into mere accidents.
I have no doubt that Faigy Mayer’s suicide was not the result of any shunning, no matter how anxious some have been to proclaim so, or what she herself may have imagined.
Religious Services Minister David Azoulay might have misspoken when he implied Reform Jews are not Jews, but his intent – contentious though it may be – touches on important truths.
Plenty of Jewish groups are citing our religious tradition in backing the U.S. gay marriage ruling, but that's not what the religion really says.
After seven children died in a Brooklyn blaze, why have fingers waved not at the manufacturer's faulty appliance, but at the Jewish community?
The link between metzitzah b'peh and fatal herpes is not as 'scientifically' obvious as one may think.
Chemi Shalev’s reading of U.S. Jewry lumps the legitimate defense of the Jewish religious tradition with anti-Arab discrimination and zealous nationalism, laying the blame at least partly on Orthodox Jews. That’s offensive – and inaccurate.
During the upcoming sabbatical year, Orthodox Jews, not least in the U.S., will not be buying Israeli produce grown by Jews. So why are Jewish eco-liberals and nationalists up in arms about leaving the Land of Israel to rest?
In dismissing the Reform movement, Israel’s president elect has committed only one sin: that of honesty. As he says, only Orthodoxy is the legitimate heir to the Jewish religious tradition.
Israel’s Haredim don’t want to enforce Jewish observance or annex the West Bank, they just want to be left alone.
New York Haredim rallied against the Israeli draft bill; meanwhile YouTube war shows how hate is hijacking dialogue between Haredim and secular Israelis.
This time you can't blame the Haredim: The opposition to prayer groups that maximize women's ritual participation comes from the heart of the Modern Orthodox establishment.
Apart from its halakhic ban, the troubling message sent out by a few young women publicly laying tefillin is that their tefillin-less female school peers are Jewishly deficient, or less holy.
What's the real reason for the relentless hostility directed at President Obama by American Orthodox Jews?
It's already impossible to talk about one Jewish people in the U.S., thanks to American liberal Judaism's dismissal of halakha. Why would we want Israel to go down that same path?