By Martin Nachimson As many of you know, this is my last column in these pages as my term as president will come to an end this January. Reflecting on my presidency, I feel a sense of immense pride. I am truly amazed at the extraordinary changes that have taken place at the OU in […]
We stand with Israel; whether that means opposing the Iran Deal, fighting the BDS movement, or mobilizing communal, media and US government support for Israel, we are and will continue to be there for Israel.
This past year, NCSY reached 19,000 kids in nearly 200 cities across the US and Canada.
In May alone, NCSY ran 1,361 events in 191 cities.
To what can we attribute NCSY’s extraordinary success?
How do we excite our children about Judaism? This is a question most Orthodox parents will ask themselves at one time or another.
For months . . . Israel [has been] faced with a new terrorist phenomenon . . . violent uprisings by the Palestinians . . . its purpose was to drive [Israelis] from all of Eretz Yisrael—including Jerusalem, Haifa and Tel Aviv . . . Instead of focusing on the Palestinian aggressors . . . the media chose, from the outset, to focus on the Israeli response, thereby turning the victim into a villian.
The Meaning of Sacrifice
I never tire of hearing about NCSYers who are moser nefesh for Yiddishkeit. I never tire of hearing about the twelve-year- old girl who decides to stop riding in a car on Shabbat or the teenager who is the only one in his entire public school to wear a yarmulke.
By Martin Nachimson There was much hand-wringing when the Pew Research Center’s “A Portrait of Jewish Americans” was first released in October 2013. We all bemoaned the devastating intermarriage rates among the non-Orthodox (at 71.5 percent), and the slow but steady erosion of American Jewish life. On the positive side, the Pew report affirmed what […]
By Martin Nachimson I often reflect on the fact that I have been involved with the Orthodox Union for more than four decades. And during those past four decades, I have witnessed much change take place, not only at the OU, but in the American Orthodox community at large. So how did I get involved […]
Many believe blood libels ended with the acquittal of Mendel Beilis in the early part of the twentieth century. This is simply not the case. In 1911, thirteen-year-old Andrei Yushchinsky, a Christian, was found murdered in a cave on the outskirts of Kiev, in what was then Russia. The child had been brutally and maliciously […]
By Martin Nachimson I write these words at the end of July, in the midst of a tumultuous summer—a summer unlike any I can recall in recent years. During these days and weeks of turmoil in which Jews the world over check the news from Israel every hour, the four simple words “Acheinu kol Beit […]
By Martin Nachimson In this issue of Jewish Action, we invited a number of erudite rabbis, thinkers and educators to reflect on the implications of the Pew Research Center’s “A Portrait of Jewish Americans,” released this past fall, for the Orthodox community. We cannot simply look at the devastating data regarding escalating intermarriage and assimilation, […]
By Martin Nachimson This year we celebrate a momentous occasion: the sixtieth anniversary of NCSY. To truly appreciate the enormous contribution NCSY has made to strengthening Orthodox life in America, we must take a trip back in time, to America in 1954, the year of NCSY’s birth. In the 1950s, Orthodoxy in America was fragile. […]
By Martin Nochimson Once there was a vast void in Jewish programs addressing the needs of young adults. There were programs from birth (“Mommy and Me”), programs for preteens, programs for teens—and then the void. Off went our kids to college and after four years, many of these impressionable young men and women began […]
By Martin Nachimson As you read this, nearly 1,000 North American teenagers are about to return to their high school classrooms or begin their college careers with a deeper appreciation of their Jewish heritage and a stronger connection to the Jewish homeland. They have just spent an incredibly inspiring summer at an NCSY program, and […]
When a new president of the Orthodox Union assumes office, he inevitably feels a sense of awe over being chosen to lead such an extraordinary organization and assume the responsibility of providing direction, guidance and strength to its various constituencies. The key constituency, of course, is the klal, the Jewish people. OU presidents must always bear […]