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.

The Search Engine and the Mirror

Andrew Silow-Carroll
“Hey, you’re Jewish? Have I got something for you!”
The ads that pop up as I cruise around the web don’t exactly say that, but they might as well. Thanks to the wonders of website tracking, advertisers and “data brokers” are able to track my IP address as I move from site to site. Google, [...]

The Other Internet Problem

Jeff Helmreich
One of the starkest contrasts between American and Jewish law involves humiliation. Today, an American can literally embarrass someone to death.

Turn It Off

Andy Bachman “Turn it Off” is this month’s ethics:
Andy Bachman explores the digital world of always being “on” and suggests ways to sometimes “turn it off.”

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 [...]