This year our Sigi Ziering column focuses on the ethics of kashrut. Each month an esteemed guest columnist will wrestle with what Jewish texts and our tradition teach us about the food we eat; the preparation of food; the people who prepare our food; the food and restaurants that are deemed kosher. This column is sponsored by Bruce Whizin and Marilyn Ziering in honor of Marilyn's husband, Sigi Ziering, of blessed memory.

Ethical Consumption

Ruth Messinger & Jordan Namerow
E.F. Schumacher’s 1973 classic Small is Beautiful introduced many of us to the concept of “enoughness” — the antidote to scarcity and the moderation of excess. It’s a concept that I hope calibrates my consumption habits wherever I am — at a kiddush lunch in California, a coffee farm in Kenya, [...]

Learning To Swim

Rachel Meytin

The New York Times recently profiled a Silicon Valley Waldorf school because the school bans Internet technology for its students (both within the school and at home). The school is striving to create an environment that is conducive to learning at a core level, trusting that students will have plenty of time to [...]

The Client-Vendor Relationship in the Digital Age

Shai Gluskin

Building dynamic Web sites involves numerous variables, not the least of which is that Web site owners often don’t know what they want or need in advance of building the site. While they might not know what they want in terms of specifications, they typically want to lock in the cost of the [...]

Video Games, Game Design, and 21st-Century Jewish Education

Owen Gottlieb

Why are good video games so compelling and why are the answers to that question crucial for Jewish education today?
Good video games model complex systems. They provide immediate feedback, and keep the player just at the edge of her or his competence — neither over challenged nor bored. Players take on roles [...]

Judaism 3.0

Robert J. Saferstein

Today, as our reliance on technological innovation continues to grow, certain questions arise: What are the consequences of engaging with the world in seclusion and through virtual means? How do changes in the ways in which we communicate affect our right to information and our right to privacy? Should expiration dates exist [...]

When Illegal Immigrants Are Jews

Douglas Hauer

Over the course of this year’s Sh’ma conversation on the ethics of immigration — and in the larger national discussion — there is a reflexive assumption that the debate is primarily about illegal Mexican and Central American immigrants who entered the United States for economic reasons. Some have defined illegal immigrants as strangers [...]

A Stranger Seeks Asylum

Jeff Goldman

The United States Immigration and Nationality Act states that foreign nationals physically inside the United States are entitled to receive political asylum if they can establish that they have suffered “past persecution,” or have a “well-founded fear of future persecution, on account of … race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a [...]

Does Your Nanny Get a Lunch Break?

Jonathan Klein ethics: “Are we our brothers’ keeper?” When considering domestic workers, our answer is critical.

Desecrating the Kitchen Table/Restoring Its Sanctity

Richard Litvak

Oshek, to oppress the laborer, is forbidden by the Torah — as it is written: “Lo ta’ashok,” “You shall not oppress a needy and destitute laborer, whether a fellow countryman or a stranger in one of the communities of your land. You must pay his wages on the same day, before the sun [...]

Individual Rights and Collective Responsibilities

Rachel B. Tiven

On Saturday, December 18, 2010, Jews in synagogue read Parashat Vayechi, while in the U.S. Senate, the Development, Relief, and Education of Alien Minors Act — the DREAM Act — went down in defeat.
Vayechi closes the story of Joseph, who was brought to Egypt as a teenager — not of [...]