On Sunday morning, exactly 46 years from when Israel freed the Kosel from Arab control in 1967, police blocked hundreds of frum people from reaching the Kosel. They had wanted to attend a special Rosh Chodesh tefillah and to protest against the Women of the Wall, who have prayed there with tallis and tefillin every Rosh Chodesh for the past 26 years.

For over half an hour, police stopped any people with a chareidi appearance from entering the Kosel plaza, while WoW provocateurs passed unimpeded. One of the people held back from entering the Kosel area gave an eye-witness report of what happened:

This week’s parsha opens with the halachos of Parah Adumah. A lesson contained in Rashi on the first posuk is often repeated. The posuk states, “Zos chukas haTorah adam ki yomus b’ohel ­- This is the chok of the Torah: When a person dies, anyone who is under the same roof as the body shall be tomei for seven days.”

Chazal derive a classic lesson by homiletically interpreting the words “Zos chukas haTorah adam ki yomus b’ohel” to mean, “This is the way of the Torah: In order to ‘own’ Torah, you must sacrifice your life for it.”

Yesh Atid MK Dov Lipman has been invited to be a keynote speaker at the upcoming RCA convention. Given Lipman’s status as one of the most divisive figures in Israeli religious politics, that choice might at first glance seem an odd one for the RCA.

His remark upon seeing an elderly street cleaner - “Why couldn’t a yeshiva student be doing that?” - has become widely quoted in the Israeli yeshiva world as an example of Yesh Atid’s contempt for Torah learning. (Apparently, it did not occur to him that the street cleaner earned his living that way.)

The most defining battle in the life of Rabbi David B. Hollander zt”l was his fight for the integrity of Orthodoxy. That battle came in the aftermath of the famous p’sak issued by many of America’s leading roshei yeshiva in 1956 prohibiting any rabbinic collaboration with Reform and Conservative clergy.

Rabbi Hollander, then president of the RCA, was determined to ensure that the RCA-affiliated rabbis who sat on mixed boards, such as the New York Board of Rabbis or the Synagogue Council of America, with Reform and Conservative clergy, would resign from those organizations. Unfortunately, that is not what happened. Instead, Rabbi Hollander was vilified and ostracized by the majority of his colleagues.

Even he
Just cannot handle
Every day
Another scandal

And the opponents
Braver, bolder
After Clinton
After Holder

Judge Stephanie Rose of Iowa, much-criticized for her role in the infamous “Postville prosecutions” when she was still a federal prosecutor, has come under fire after allegedly trying to manipulate criminal prosecutions, and for threatening retaliation against attorneys who made her angry.

Judge Rose was sworn in as a federal judge earlier this year, after opposition by those who believed she was a driving force in the “Postville prosecutions” had quieted down.