April 20, 2023
“Tradition Questions” returns with Zissy Turner’s influential inquiry into Orthodox “Influencers.” What is gained and lost with the cadre of social media mavens, mainly women, to whom large swaths of our community have granted influence?
March 9, 2023
Does the rise of the Men's Seder suggest that Modern Orthodox men are lonely? Tzvi Sinensky answers yes, in this new TRADITIONS QUESTIONS column, arguing that alongside efforts to cultivate more entry points for women, Modern Orthodox communities must do more to meet our men's unique social and spiritual needs.
March 2, 2023
Chaim Strauchler returns to TRADITION QUESTIONS by noting the disappearance of a once-popular literary genre that celebrates individual accomplishment through the lens of Jewish collective identity. He attributes this to the growth of “more than” anti-Semitism. He questions the absence of a parallel genre through which we might collectively take responsibility for the damage caused by our co-religionists.
November 24, 2022
Chaim Strauchler initiates the Tradition Questions Project with a reflection on the physical dimensions of Torah scrolls. They’re getting smaller. He suggests that this may be a problem: This change, while facilitating admirable popular contact with Torah scrolls, is not without halakhic problems. For our purposes it opens an array of questions, including: Who counts as an “important person”? Can such an idea persist in contemporary society? How does this trend relate to privatization of what were once communal objects (and norms)?