Neon Amen sign
05 Jan
Archives from the past..., Jewish Word, Uncategorized

Can I Get An Amen?

In Numbers 5:22, a priest orders a woman who is accused of adultery to drink water that is mixed with dust from a tabernacle floor. The priest reasons that if the woman has committed adultery, the brew will inflict her with a wasting disease, but if she is innocent she will consume the drink, unharmed. Adding to the woman’s plight, she is required by God to submit to her shabby fate by yelling, “Amen, Amen!” What’s striking about this passage is not that God thought a woman’s digestive tract could determine guilt, but that it is the Bible’s first—as well as history’s first documented—mention of the term amen. In early biblical passages, the term “is used as an affirmation, particularly with respect to a curse,” explains Yochanan Rivkin, a rabbi at Tulane University’s Chabad House, but...

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29 Jun
Archives from the past...

Leonard Fein // Let My People Go… Where?

Originally Published in Volume 2, Issue 4 (1977) It was too good to last. The stirring saga of Soviet Jewry—identity rediscovered, tyranny opposed, the world's conscience aroused, new lives begun in Israel and the United States—has become, finally, a kvetch. Harsh? Consider: when the Russian Jews began to arrive in Israel in substantial number, many Israelis unwelcomed them, grumbled about the unfair advantages they were given. When the Russian Jews began to arrive in the United States in more than token numbers, American Jews were rather less than enthusiastic, disappointed that the Russians hadn't gone to Israel, confused by the often minimal Jewishness of the new immigrants, concerned by the financial burden they imposed. The satisfying sense of victory we felt as the Jackson-Vanick amendment wended its way to Congressional approval has long since turned sour,...

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Leonard “Leibel” Fein Speaking at an Event
21 Aug
Archives from the past..., Arts & Culture, Latest

Founder Leibel Fein on Moment’s Origins

The death of Moment founder Leonard “Leibel” Fein last week marked a major loss for the Jewish world. An incisive literary voice and champion of social justice, Fein was “among the foremost of the so-called liberal Zionists … a social progressive, a fierce peacenik, a staunch defender of Israel and a shrewd observer of the American Jewish community,” wrote The New York Times. The Jewish Week recalled “his husky voice and articulate message on improving Jewish life by doing good for one’s fellow man.” And colleague Steven Cohen praised his talent for melding “dispassionate academic rigor and engaged social action” in The Jewish Daily Forward. At this time last year, Moment interviewed Fein on the magazine’s early days, and what he hoped to achieve with Moment. Here is an excerpt. How did Moment come to be born? I.F. Stone had...

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26 Dec
Archives from the past..., Latest, Religion

Always a "Moment" Ahead of the Curve

One of the great things about Moment is that through its 36-year history, it has documented breaking trends in Jewish life with insight and forward-looking prowess.  Our last cover story, "A Woman Orthodox Rabbi?" made a splash in the Jewish community.  But a peek through our archives unveiled that Moment was ahead of the curve on the evolution of women in Orthodox Judaism.  Exactly 17 years ago, our cover story delved into the same issue, anticipating some of the breakthroughs that took nearly two decades to to come to fruition: For your reading pleasure, InTheMoment is giving you exclusive access to this fascinating story from our archives, which is all the more enlightening in light of our last issue.  Enjoy!

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24 Nov
Archives from the past..., History, Latest, Religion

On The Origins of Species turns 150

By Sarah Breger Today’s the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. But 150 years later the relationship between science and religion remains contentious. In 2005 and 2006, Moment Magazine correspondent Jennie Rothenberg profiled and reviewed the works of Nosson Slifkin, an Orthodox rabbi whose views on evolution have branded him a heretic in certain Orthodox circles. As Rothenberg describes, "One can imagine him lying awake at night, brooding over the gulf between science and scripture, the words of various rabbis swirling through his head. The result is a clear-eyed vision of the natural sciences as seen through the lens of Jewish tradition." Read about this "theistic Darwinian evolutionist" here and a review of his work here.  Happy Monkey Day!

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05 Feb
Archives from the past..., History, Latest, topics

Avigdor Lieberman: Israel's Le Pen

By Jeremy Gillick Two years ago, Ha'aretz correspondent Lily Galili profiled the right wing Israeli politician and founder of the Yisrael Beiteinu ("Israel is our Home") Party, Avigdor Lieberman, for Moment. Having served as Transportation Minister under Ariel Sharon, and having subsequently been fired in 2004 for opposing the withdrawal from Gaza, Lieberman "re-emerged," Galili wrote in early 2007, "as a strange hybrid of an Israeli version of Jean-Marie Le Pen (the infamous French extreme right-winger) and respectable statesman." Indeed, it was recently revealed that Lieberman was at one point a member of Rabbi Meir Kahane's Kach Party, which was banned from Israeli elections in the late 1980s for inciting racism against Arabs. Now, with Israeli elections just days away, Lieberman and his nationalist party are poised to make huge gains. Polls indicate that Yisrael Beitenu could win...

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08 Dec
Archives from the past..., History, Latest

College Admissions? Of Buchenwald and Princeton

By Mandy Katz Some of his Frankfurt gymnasium teachers ended up in Buchenwald, my Tel Aviv correspondent Ernest Stock writes, but he ended up graduating from Princeton in 1949. God bless the G.I. Bill. Now a retired journalist, Ernie offers this unconventional college memoir on the website of the Princeton Alumni Weekly. Having escaped the Nazis at 14 by trekking with his little sister into Spain from occupied France, Ernie was drafted into the U.S. military in 1943. On demobilizing, he scored high enough on the Army's college entrance exam to matriculate as a sophomore at Princeton in '46, at a time when that august institution admitted roughly 25 Jews each year under an unspoken "no-quota" quota system. Ernie played a central role in engineering the first meetings between Princeton's tweedy Jewish undergrads and local notable Albert Einstein....

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10 Nov
Archives from the past..., Latest

Al Franken Gets Serious

by David Paul Kuhn Al Franken leans over the scattered papers atop his desk. He puffs out his pasty cheeks. His round brown glasses seem slightly too small for his face. His brown eyebrows arch up and he grins like Jack Nicholson’s Joker in Batman. “I gotta tell you,” Franken says to me in his midtown Manhattan office, “I’ve been to Israel, and I didn’t enjoy it.” He chuckles. He knows he’s telling this to a Jewish magazine. “I hate to say that,” he continues. “I support Israel. But when I was there, in 1984, it was very high-pressured. It felt very”—he pauses to find the right word—“tense.” Al Franken is a caricature of himself, which allows him to talk about serious issues without ever appearing to take himself too seriously. He can shuttle from the solemn...

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30 Oct
Archives from the past..., Arts & Culture, Latest

More from actor Kirk Douglas about being Jewish

We hope you've all seen our exclusive interview with actor Kirk Douglas in the September/October issue of Moment in which he talks with his rabbi, David Wolpe. Moment has published thoughts from Douglas before. Back in 1995 we published a (slightly adapted) speech that he had previously given to the Los Angeles Synagogue for the Performing Arts. From the Moment archives, the article follows... When I was a poor kid growing up in Amsterdam, New York, I was pretty good in cheder, so the Jews of our community thought they would do a wonderful thing and collect enough money to send me to a yeshiva to become a rabbi. It scared the hell out of me, because I didn't want to become a rabbi. I wanted to be an actor. Believe me, the members of the Sons...

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