JVO Blog

Get Refusal Didn’t Cause the Agunah Problem- Halachah Did

Posted on 07/08/2019 by Moshe Daniel Levine in Beliefs and Practices

Imagine for a moment that you are hired as a lawyer to defend a client in a high stakes court case, say regarding the custody of one’s children. After speaking to your client and gathering the relevant...

Why I Always Engage in Conversation with Anti-Semites

Posted on 06/24/2019 by Moshe Daniel Levine in Beliefs and Practices

I bumped into him on campus a few weeks later. In a completely calm and even somewhat apoligetic tone he said: “The stuff you told me about most of the Jews in Israel being non-white and from Arab...

Jewish History on One Foot

Posted on 06/18/2019 by Moshe Daniel Levine in Israel

In my daily life I meet a ton of people who have never talked to a Jew. Often times this is within the context of running educational events on college campuses, speaking at interfaith functions, or even...

How Brave Would I Be - Wearing a Kippah in Germany

Posted on 06/11/2019 by Moshe Daniel Levine in Beliefs and Practices

I have had a safer, more privileged, unconfined, and all around freer upbringing than any previous Jewish generation before me. As someone who is obsessed with Jewish history, learning the ins and outs of the...

The Importance of the Messiah is That He is Never Coming

Posted on 06/02/2019 by Moshe Daniel Levine in Beliefs and Practices

In the late 18th century a small group of European Jews made a radical and heretical claim. There is no Messiah, he isn’t coming. Given that one of the most important articles of faith throughout the...

How the Rambam Helped Me Think About Free Will

Posted on 05/21/2019 by Moshe Daniel Levine in Beliefs and Practices

One of the fundamental questions that scholars throughout Jewish history have addressed is the fundamental incompatibility of free will and divine foreknowledge. Put simply, if God knows what we are going to...

The Hidden Tactics of Jews for Jesus

Posted on 05/13/2019 by Moshe Daniel Levine in News & Updates

In the past few months I have attended two different church services (where I spoke on interfaith panels), spent time researching early Christianity for an article I was writing, wrote an article about...

The Best and Most Important Television Show You Have Never Heard Of

Posted on 05/09/2019 by Moshe Daniel Levine in Beliefs and Practices

While I am by no means a big television watcher, this has been an exceptional time for fans of Israeli TV. Shows like Fauda and Shtisel (both on Netflix) allow audiences to get a glimpse of what life is like...

The Original Israeli Land Swap Deal

Posted on 05/02/2019 by Moshe Daniel Levine in News & Updates

Perhaps nothing evokes a stronger debate within the Israeli political sphere than the idea of land for peace. The idea itself is quite simple. Israel gives over land that it has conquered (historically it has...

Meritocracy or Not?

Posted on 04/17/2019 by Moshe Daniel Levine in Beliefs and Practices

Many of the fierce debates within our current political atmosphere could be reduced to a very simple and fundamental question: Do you believe that our society is a meritocracy or not? A meritocracy is the idea...

<< 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 >>