Author: Harvey Belovski

Anti-Semitism: The Longest Hatred

A Theological Approach Understanding anti-Semitism—dubbed by historian Robert Wistrich “the longest hatred”1—is far from simple. Entire libraries explore and agonize over an animus that appears as illogical as it is ineradicable. It is tempting to consign it to the realm of the inscrutable and treat it as a subcategory of the suffering of the righteous, […]

A Jewish Response to Human Catastrophe

Rabbi Harvey Belovski’s article following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti teaches us how to properly respond to calamities of such proportion. It is near impossible to find adequate words to describe the scale of human suffering that followed in the wake of the massive earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12th, 2010. With over 200,000 […]

Avoiding the Slide into Extremism

Years ago, a prominent London rabbi visited the town where I was learning. I called upon him at the home of his mother, the widow of a world-renowned rosh yeshivah. During the conversation, the rebbetzin asked her son if I was “normal.” When she seemed satisfied with her son’s response (apparently I qualified, but only […]