Former Sephardi Chief Rabbi Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron is being indicted for ordering the rabbinate to issue phony ordination certificates to 1,500 police and army officers. Having an academic degree -- and rabbinic ordination counts as an academic degree -- gets people working for the government a higher salary. Rabbi Bakshi-Doron allegedly agreed to the scheme...
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Do these three guys look dangerous? Apparently, the IDF seems to think they are some kind of subversives or something. In actuality they are Rabbi Arik Ascherman, Director of Special Projects for Rabbis for Human Rights (RHR), Garry Walsh of RHR's partner Trocaire, and yours truly, chairman of the board for RHR. On Tu...
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For this week, I tried my hand at doing a video version of my d'var Torah. The text version is available at the Americans for Peace Now web site, click here to read it. Please leave comments if you like the video format. I'm sure production values would improve with more practice. Reb Barry...
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Adapted from a talk I gave at the opening of the Human Rights Beit Midrash at Hebrew University. And, behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie, to you will I give it, and...
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Jerusalem, November 18, 2011 -- It is utterly appalling that many teenage ultra-Orthodox Jews choose to express their disdain for Christianity by spitting at priests.First, I am appalled that they disdain Christianity, a "sister religion" to Judaism, whose adherents hold our Torah to be Holy Scripture and who worship the same God we do....
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As I write this I am at sea, on my way home to Israel from Egypt (via Rome, which admittedly is the long way, but it’s the route that Herod followed as well). It is also the holiday of Sukkot, which the Torah tells us, “That your generations may know that I made the...
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