Author Archives: jik

HMO as (bad) doctor

My wife and I each recently received letters from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, our health insurer through my employer. These letters introduced us to a program being run by BCBS which, to put it bluntly, is wrong, wrong, wrong.

Freedom of Religion is not Freedom of Taxpayer-Funded Discrimination

I am fed up with people claiming that the Freedom of Religion of the Catholic church and Boston’s Catholic Charities have been violated by the state’s insistence that they obey anti-discrimination laws. Which part of, “If you want to discriminate, then don’t take the state’s money,” do they not understand?

“Modern Orthodox not welcome”

Visit http://english.thekotel.org/. Note the section header “Bar/Bat Mitzva”. Click on it. Search the entire section for any mention of celebration of a Bat Mitzva ceremony at the Kotel. If you find one, let me know, because I sure couldn’t. I’ve therefore just sent the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, the owners of the site, a message… Read More: “Modern Orthodox not welcome” »

Rabbi Mordecai Tendler case?

While searching for material on the Web about the agunah problem to answer a question someone asked about whether excommunication is still used within Judaism, I came upon news I hadn’t previously heard, concerning the expulsion earlier this year of Rabbi Mordecai Tendler from the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA).