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.

Homelessness

Aryeh Cohen
At the most intense moment of the Jewish liturgical year — Yom Kippur/the Day of Atonement — the tradition dictates that the portion we read from the Prophets, the haftorah, is one that challenges the very practice embodied in that holy fast day.

Broken Silence

Andrew Silow-Carroll
Last year the New York Times ran a despairing series of articles on how hard it was becoming to prosecute street crimes because of witness intimidation.

Silence is Not the Opposite of Speech

Sheila Peltz Weinberg
When Sylvia Boorstein and I cooked up the idea to bring rabbis on retreat to learn meditation and have them be in silence for four days, people thought we were crazy.

Doing, Hearing, and Seeing

Abram Sterne
Growing up as the only hearing child in a deaf family meant that I had a unique sense of sound. While my mother, father, and two sisters were profoundly deaf, my home was not necessarily filled with silence.

Silence is Deadly

Naomi Graetz
After much soul-searching and polling among my friends, I came up with a title for my book on wife beating: Silence is Deadly.

Taking Hillel and History to Heart

Abraham H. Foxman
Why did you make that statement? How did you arrive at that position? Is it in the best interest of the Jewish community to speak publicly on that issue?

A Season for Chutzpah

Alan Dershowitz
Ecclesiastes teaches us that to everything there is a season. Nearly 20 years ago I wrote a book called Chutzpah in which I argued that the Jewish community needs more chutzpah.

Hands and Tongues

Leonard Fein
There are times we are rendered mute, when silence is both becoming and unavoidable. The most obvious example (though far from the only one) is 9/11.

When Do We Speak Out About “Someone Else’s” Atrocity?

Aryeh Cohen
“If you’ve grown up taking [the practice of female genital cutting] for granted as the normal thing to do, you will probably respond at first with surprise to someone who thinks it is wrong.

Campus Leadership: When to Listen and When to Lead?

David A. Harris
Imagine you are a Jewish student leader at a prestigious university. You’ve learned that the Palestine Solidarity Movement will hold a national conference aimed at divesting campus resources from Israel — on your campus. You and other students feel strongly that the right thing to do is to continue with the proactive, pro-Israel [...]