How we admire the character of Frank Sinatra as he croons about doing it “my way”! We admire his strength, his individuality, his ability to stand counter to prevailing sentiment. He did his own thing ...

Today, the Jewish concept of the mamzer — the halachically illegitimate child — may seem to be irrelevant and detached from modern reality. Liberal Western discourse has difficulty relating to it; ...

I think it’s time to deal with the issue of mamzerut. I was exposed to the subject as a result of my work as a rabbinic advocate in Israel, working with women who were denied divorces and agunot, ...

Jews have always had a complicated relationship with opera. Ostracized in European society, Jewish composers and librettists had few chances to make professional headway; perhaps the most successful ...

Much misunderstanding surrounds the law in this week’s sidra that says lo yavo mamzer bik’hal HaShem – “A mamzer shall not enter the congregation of the Lord” (Deut. 23:3). The English translations ...

Relatively bearable is the cantorial music framing the action, mostly by other composers – only the last of the seven numbers is by Zisser, and you can guess without having read the programme ...