For so many people religion is practiced out of a sense superstition. Like a furry rabbit's foot, it wards off evil spirits. Fulfilling the word of God keeps you from experiencing bad things. So what happens when you're religious and those bad things happen anyway? It must be because you...

I just finished one of the best books I've read in a long time, In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson, which tells the story of Ambassador William Dodd, President Roosevelt's first Ambassador to Hitler. The book chronicles the slow descent of Germany into Nazi tyranny. One of the...

Has Stephen Hawking really left the company of Albert Einstein, an avowed Zionist who worked to create the State of Israel, and replaced him with the august company of Elvis Costello and other Israel boycotters?

I hosted Hawking for a lecture at Oxford in 1998 where I introduced him to...

Twenty-three years ago a young Mormon Doctoral student came to our Friday night Sabbath dinner at Oxford with a Jewish friend. Though I had met Mormons before I had never gotten to know any intimately, let alone the grandson of the Mormon prophet and President of the worldwide church. Little...

Co-authored by Arash Farin

Yet again, the United States, and, indeed the world, finds itself having to confront a dictatorial regime led by a maniacal leader who continuously threatens both our country and that of our allies. Although Iran typically leads international headlines in this arena, the North Korean regime...

The news over the last few weeks of the sock puppet scandal of Rabbi Michael Broyde is disturbing, but not for the reasons you might imagine. On the face of it, this is the story of a Rabbi regarded as brilliant and erudite, both in Jewish and secular law, who...

Let me surprise you for a moment. The reason that tragedies, like the outrageous terrorist bombing in Boston this week, continue to take place is not because the world lacks love but rather because it doesn't have enough hate. Living in a Christian world that teaches us to 'love the...

In the interests of full disclosure, let me first offer that Sheldon Adelson and members of his family donated to my campaign for Congress when I was ran last year (yes, I know I lost. But 'Shmuley for President 2016' is just three years away). Furthermore, as was widely reported,...

Co-authored by Arash Farin

President Barack Obama's first trip to Israel since he became president had the potential to yield many tangible results, not the least of which could have been a demand on the part of the leader of the free world that Hamas revoke its genocidal charter against...

It speaks volumes about a culture when a President, whom by all accounts is personally honorable, is forced to apologize to an attorney general for commenting favorably on her physical appearance, while, in the same week that same culture defends lace trim thongs for teen girls with 'Call Me' on...

A friend from New Jersey, who lived through Hurricane Sandy, as did I, called and asked me why God did not send a similar storm against Egypt and Pharaoh. "One plague and that would have done it," he said. "The Egyptians would have been begging to let the Jews go....

Followers of the Passover story can rightly wonder why frogs were such a terrible plague. Was God really showing His power to the Egyptians by sending against them an army of amphibians? Would the nation that would eventually produced Cleopatra, who purportedly killed herself by grabbing a poisonous snake, really...

A significant number of American values failures came together to create the tragedy in Stuebenville, where two teenage High School football stars, Trent Mays and Ma'lik Richmond, were found guilty of raping a 16-year-old girl.

Foremost among them is the American tragedy of sexualizing teen girls at...

Whoever the new Pope will be, he will have the chance to address the 900 pound gorilla staring down the Catholic Church, namely the constant sexual abuse scandals. I am a Jew who wishes to see the Catholic Church flourish. I count myself fortunate to have met Pope Benedict prior...

A century is a large amount of time and any significant slice thereof is itself significant. A child of divorce whose parents' marriage ended after 13 years can be forgiven at his own sense of astonishment that his marriage has, with God's infinite blessing, reached the quarter century mark.

Those...

Yarmulkes off to Secretary of State John Kerry who pushed back against the repellant, nauseating comments of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan who had said, at a UN-organized conference in Vienna (where else?) on February 27, that Zionism was a crime against humanity. Kerry said that United States found...

Modern wives often lose the sensuality of womanhood. They are feminine when they marry but are quickly relegated to the roles of caretaker, wage-earner, housekeeper, and waitress. Burdened with responsibility, fatigue, and what can feel like a monotonous, uneventful grind, many experience a loss of libido and the gradual diminishment...

The Jewish people can be characterized as a noble and distinguished nation who have excelled in nearly every area but sports and messaging. We can cite but a handful of Jews who have won an Olympic medal, caught a touchdown pass in the Super Bowl, or hit a home run...

I don't want to come across as a prude and less so do I want to judge. So how do I say this delicately?

For those of us who always hoped that Israel would stand for just a little bit more than some of the values of the rest of...

Shabbos in Davos. Almost rhymes, like the two are meant to be together.

And so it felt this past weekend at the alpine World Economic Forum in Switzerland. Every year, on Friday night, the Forum hosts a Shabbat meal that, longtime attendants say, started with a handful of people, including...