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 Housing Crisis: Who Should Be Helped?

Mordechai Liebling
In Mishneh Torah 9:6 we learn: “A person who owns houses, fields, and vineyards that if sold during the rainy season would fetch a lower price than during the summer, should not be made to sell them; rather, [the person] should receive out of the proceeds of the poor person’s tithe [community tzedakah fund] up to half the value of the properties, so that the person should not be forced to sell at the wrong time.”

The Housing Crisis: Who Should Be Helped?

John C. Weicher
The crisis in American housing and financial markets started in February 2007 when a number of large mortgage lenders began reporting unexpectedly large losses on their portfolios of subprime mortgages, or securities backed by subprime mortgages.

Encountering the Homeless

Jason Kimelman-Block
As part of my work, I regularly introduce Jewish high school students to homeless people on the streets of Washington, DC.

Landlords and Tenants

Jill Jacobs
Residents of a rent-stabilized apartment building in the Bronx were recently shocked to receive rent increases of up to 16 percent, far above the currently permitted increase of 4.5 percent.

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?