The title says it all. This episode explains what CRT is, what it is NOT, and how the far right is using it to promote its claim that "the Jews" are out to destroy the white Christians in this country.

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A case argued on Wednesday before the Supreme Court very likely will result in a ruling that could effectively end any notion that a wall exists between church and state. That ruling may also cause great harm to our nation's public school system. It also may highlight the hypocrisy of conservative judges who claim that they are only following what the founders put into the Constitution. In this case, certainly, they will be ignoring what the founders meant when they ratified the First Amendment.

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According to Gallup, its current conservative majority has driven the Supreme Court down to its lowest approval rating since Gallup began monitoring this in 2000. Lower federal courts rate better, but not by much, and that too is dropping given some recent rulings. There are many reasons for this—including fears about Roe v Wade and the refusal to delay Texas' anti-abortion law until the court decides the case—and this level of disapproval has helped fuel calls for court reform. A commission exploring the issue meets again on Tuesday and plans to submit its final report by month's end. There's much in Jewish law that's relevant to the debate,

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The title says it all. This is a slightly edited version of the original podcast from last year. Happy Secular Sukkot (oops, I meant Thanksgiving).

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The song "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas" can apply nowadays to Chanukah, as well. It, too, is beginning to look a lot like Christmas. In trying to fit in with the broader world around us, how far should we go? At the same time, how should we relate to "the other" in a general way?

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When you consider that there are 320 monuments and street names throughout the world memorializing the perpetrators or abettors of the Holocaust, especially including in New York and elsewhere in the United States, as well as in Canada, you must realize that there’s a serious problem that must be addressed. Add to that teachers in a Texas school district being told that under a new state law they must teach their students both sides of the Holocaust, meaning they also must teach Nazi Germany’s defense of its murderous actions. A series of surveys undertaken by the Holocaust Taskforce of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany identifies a large part of the problem—too few people in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, France and elsewhere have even a basic knowledge of the Holocaust, if they heard of it at all.

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Tuesday's election demonstrated yet again that the values we Americans should espouse and practice are woefully out of whack. The trivialization of the meaning of Thanksgiving—and with it the meaning of Chanukah and the meaning of Christmas—played a huge role in that.

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A lot of ink and air time has been spent on Alec Baldwin's accidental shooting on a film set, killing its cinematographer and wounding its director. As tragic as that incident was, however, most incidents of gun violence go unreported or under-reported—such as a 21-year-old mother being accidentally shot in the head by her 2-year-old son—and that's an even greater tragedy.  The greatest tragedy of all, though, is that little is being done to control the availability of guns and, in some states, legislators are making it even easier to get guns.

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Last Monday was the 25th yahrzeit of the assassination of Yitzchak Rabin 26 years ago. The secular anniversary will be marked on Thursday, November 4.  A religious fanatic named Yigal Amir pulled the trigger. but all of us had a role to play in encouraging him. We still haven't learned that lesson—and that poses a threat to the Jewish future.

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When you consider that there are over 3 million reported incidents of domestic violence every year in the United States, mostly against women, you know we have a problem. Here is the bottom line: spousal abuse of any kind is prohibited by Jewish law. Those authorities who "fuled" that wives may be beaten by their husbands are offering their opinions, often influenced by the broader culture in which they lived—but those "rulings" have no support in the Torah or the Talmud.

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