Free Speech and The Right to Boycott

“If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence. Only an emergency can justify repression. Such must be the rule if authority is to be reconciled with freedom.” -Justice Louis Brandeis T’ruah...
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Every Person Counts? (Parshat Bamidbar)

Commentary on Parshat Bamidbar (Numbers 1:1-4:20) Our Torah portion opens with the taking of another census of B’nai Yisrael – the Children of Israel – this time “listed by their clans, ages 20 years and up, all those in Israel who are able to bear arms…” (Num. 1:2) This is census number three since the...
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Private Prisons, God’s People

A number of years ago my husband’s nephew suggested that we invest some funds with him in high-risk high-yield bonds. We did. After earning a good return, I asked my husband what his nephew had done with our money. He answered that his nephew, among other ventures, had invested in for-profit prisons. I was horrified....
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Vayikra: Mincha and Roses

To stand for human dignity means not only insisting on the right to basic survival needs, but the right to live fully — to experience joy, pleasure, love, friendship, beauty.
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Rabbi Adir Yolkut

Yitro: The Jewish Case for Protecting Voting Rights in 2024

As inheritors of a multi-vocal Jewish tradition that welcomes dissent and minority opinions, allowing people the chance to freely, legally, and openly participate in the democratic process strikes me as very Jewish. So to look at some of these harsh policies that stifle the voices of the downtrodden contradicts so much of what we hold dear in Judaism.
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The Holiness of Blemishes

Those of us concerned for the basic human rights of the physically and mentally disabled can easily be dismayed by this week’s Torah portion, Emor. For while Leviticus promises universal access to the sacred, this portion seems to restrict direct access to God to an ever- smaller subset of a tiny priestly minority. This portion...
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