American Jews are facing a demographic crisis. An aging population, low fertility rate, and high rate of intermarriage combine to reveal an exceptionally weak desire to raise up a new generation of Jewish Americans. In this 2005 Commentary article, sociologist Jack Wertheimer explores and explains this phenomenon and asks whether there is anything that can […]

It is widely known that a substantial number of men from the yeshiva community in Israel study Torah full-time, relying on broad support from the state to supplement their wives’ income in order to sustain their families. Perhaps less well known is that this phenomenon is not a traditional way of Jewish life, but one […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  Chapter 1: Evolution of Jewish Education in America Chapter 2: Milton Friedman on“The Role of Government in Education” Chapter 3: State of Jewish Day Schools and the Tuition Crisis Chapter 4: State of School Choice Debate in America Chapter 5: […]

On top of the rising costs of raising a child in America, Jack Wertheimer estimates that “actively engaged” Jewish families pay a premium of “$50,000 and $110,000 a year just to live a Jewish life.” Behind these financial costs are significant moral ones, Rabbi Aryeh Klapper argues in this 2012 article. High costs of living […]

What role should the government play in educating its citizens? In this 1955 essay, economics Nobel laureate Milton Friedman argues that while there is an economic case to be made for government to subsidize the education of the young, it does not follow that government itself should be in the business of running schools. Friedman […]

Synagogue membership rolls have been dwindling, and the Jewish establishment is right to wonder about the fate of the one communal institution around which the religious lives of most Jewish men and women have revolved since the destruction of the Second Temple. In the United States, the synagogue is threatened by a scale of young […]

Does Bible Criticism leave room for faith? Noted Bible scholar Jon Levenson points out in this 1993 First Things article that the purely secular, critical approach to the Bible of many academics suffers from the same faults as does the fundamentalist religious approach: both ultimately rely on their own uncriticized values and assumptions. Pluralism and […]

Writing in Tradition in 1965, Rabbi Isaiah Rackovsky explores the tension between the institution of the family, which serves as the foundation of the Jewish way of life, and modernity, its ideas and political institutions. Judaism sets the framework for cultural transmission by imparting a duty on parents to educate their children and commanding children […]

Understanding the human condition, the essential qualities that make us who we are, shapes how we think about our purpose as men and women created in the image of God.  Searching for distinctive characteristics that separate the human animal from all others, philosophers have proposed that man is an acquisitive animal, a social animal, a […]

Does religious life benefit from studying the secular liberal arts? In this 2012 essay, Yeshiva University professor Shalom Carmy argues that literature, history, and philosophy enrich an education grounded in the halachic tradition. The study of humanities sheds light on the human condition, making us more aware of the divine presence and the man’s place in […]