It’s late evening in a well-known kosher restaurant on Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles. Most of those seated at the tables have already finished...

It is widely accepted that Rav Meir Chodosh, zt”l, was one of the luminaries of the mussar movement, as well as one of the...

When I went into my parents’ bedroom on a quiet, ordinary Sunday afternoon, I was looking for a book I had misplaced, but I...

“The Brisker Rav was niftar right before Yom Kippur,” Rav Rafael Reichman says reflectively, looking upward. Rav Reichman is a rather tall man, and...

Rabbanit Leah Kook is an enigma. She was born into rabbinic scholarly aristocracy and grew up among the crème de la crème of the...

On a recent visit to Eretz Yisrael I had the great privilege to pay a visit to Rav Moshe Hillel Hirsch, the esteemed rosh...

Dear Ami: After my father died, my mother was inconsolable. She withdrew into herself and gave up on life. Nothing interested her anymore, and whenever...

‘‘Rebbe, who is worthy in this generation to bestow a brachah?” the chasidim asked the Satmar Rebbe. “One who has numbers on his arm has...

“Your mother is here.” “What?” “Your mother is here, outside.” “It can’t be. My mother is in Milwaukee.” “She’s waiting for you outside. Go speak with her.” I was...

This week, on a visit from Los Angeles, Chuck Abel was greeted at Yeshivas Ponevezh by its nasi, Rav Eliezer Kahaneman. Although this was...

Around this time of the year, it is customary in many shuls to switch the paroches to a white one for the Yomim Nora’im....

It was Erev Yom Kippur, and our daughter Mindy was home with us, for now. The last ten years had taken her on a...

An American author and cultural critic once had this to say about the attribute of charisma: “Charisma only wins people’s attention. Once you have...

One Friday morning my two-year-old son Yehudah woke up sounding congested. He seemed to be a little lethargic and was running a low-grade fever,...

Of all the people I’ve ever met, no story has ever touched me like that of Rabbi Yitzi and Dina Hurwitz. Rabbi Yitzi, who...

When I meet Leah Horowitz, I tell her something I’ve never said to an interviewee before. “Leah, I don’t envy you. I don’t know...

Last week’s House Judiciary Committee hearing with Corey Lewandowski was the circus watched around the world. According to most commentators, it was an event...

A quarter of a century ago, I was an anxious young mother of two little boys, the younger of which wasn’t gaining enough weight....

“The facts, Ma’am, just the facts,” as fictional detectives used to say. So let’s look at the evidence. 1. President Rouhani of Iran was in Turkey...

The elections have ended in what seems to be another stalemate. Here is a five-point summary of what happened: 1. Is this the endof an...