May 2026

The Boruch Lanner case, which broke in 2000–along with many other contemporaneous pedophile cases of the time—broke my faith pretty hard. The incidents described below (not my own commentary) come from Gary Rosenblatt’s article on Lanner for the Jewish Week, which is linked at the end of this article. “When she…told Rabbi Lanner that she…

Author’s Note During Shavuot, I unexpectedly encountered not one but two copies of a collection of Gary Rosenblatt’s Jewish Week columns. The volume contains his groundbreaking reporting on the Boruch Lanner scandal, Rabbi Mordechai Willig’s later public apology, and the immense communal trauma that unfolded between those two moments. I cannot begin to imagine the…

Source of quotes: https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/7084976/jewish/Pious-Arguments-Against-Defending-Israel-Refuted.htm  “There is no reasoning with those who advocate concessions — thus, we should pay them no heed. Rather, we must protest against their claim and clearly state that theirs is not the Torah view! This view is contrary to the clear ruling in the Code of Jewish Law that one must…

Modern Zionism emerged as a secular political movement in late nineteenth-century Europe, but its relationship to Jewish law and theology has never been merely political and its results have been to advance our faith. In my view, Zionism should be understood as a historical stepping stone toward the coming of the Moshiach, a stage in…

Survivors may turn to self-proclaimed online advocates for support and to amplify their message. The reality is that they have their own agenda. When you DM an “influencer” to “raise awareness,” are you dealing with a “wolf in sheep’s clothing”? These seeming advocates may appear to promise sympathy and care. Who could look away from…

One way you can tell that an adult is a CSA survivor is that they talk nonstop about protecting children and keeping them safe. It isn’t once in a while or every other day. It’s a flood. And it’s clear how they’re coping with unbearable trauma: they try to stop that same trauma from happening…

There is a particular kind of argument that does not merely disagree—it disqualifies. It does not rebut—it brands. And once you see its structure, you start to recognize it in places that, at first glance, seem completely unrelated. In its most absolutist forms, contemporary anti-Israel activism operates on precisely this logic. Label Israeli conduct as…

Posted with the permission of Mr. Lowy. “FAIK” is a term referring to the Fake Agunah Industrial Komplex. A real “agunah” in Jewish law is a woman whose husband has disappeared due to no fault of his wife, and the wife wants him back. Automatically categorizing every woman in a divorce conflict as an “agunah”…

We are all getting a bad feeling. Last Friday night, Shabbos, Esti was last seen walking in a park at 11:30 PM. The late hour and her attire (sweatpants) suggest a few disturbing possibilities. Was she out late because she was groomed? Under the influence? Family fight? At this critical moment, Esti’s phone remains the…

Adeena Kohn is not an Agunah, nor is Raphi Stein a Get abuser, a domestic abuser, or anything remotely close to that. Tragically, he fell into a trap set by his mother-in-law to permanently move the family out of Montreal and into Monsey. He fell for it because his wife was experiencing a postpartum medical…