Category Archives: General Interest
A Proposed Approach to Blocking Anti Mezuzah Co-Op and Condo Regulations
There have been several cases in which plaintiffs sued for the right to affix or leave a Mezuzah on an outside doorpost of an apartment, after a co-op or condo board required removal based upon a co-op or condo rule. For many years, courts held that the Fair Housing Act (FHA) prohibited religious discrimination against […]
Appellate Court Affirms Decision Allowing Disinterment
In April 2010, I blogged on a case in which a Supreme Court judge in Queens County permitted the non-Jewish spouse of a deceased Jewish man to exhume his body from a Jewish cemetery for reburial in what the judge termed a “non-denominational” cemetery, St. Elizabeth. The decedent was buried in the family plot next […]
Delegating credit matters to employees may obligate business owners
My co-blogger, Avrohom Gefen, recently won an interesting case, Felix Storch Inc. vs. Martinucci Desserts USA Inc., that was published yesterday in the New York Law Journal. The case was decided on January 31, 2011. The reported facts are as follows. Plaintiff, Felix Storch, sold commercial refrigerator units to Martinucci Desserts on credit. Martinucci went out of […]
What is the Torah’s Economy? (Election Day Post)
Today’s election is widely seen as a referendum on the Democrat controlled Congress and first two years of Obama’s presidency, and specifically, the Democrats’ handling of the economy and the legislative agenda they pursued. The theoretical question for this blog today, and a theme I hope to return to in the future: What is the […]
Against a so-called “Orthodox Tea Party”
The political and ideological interests of Orthodox Jews often coincide with various conservative agendas. I, for one, would love to receive school vouchers. Kashrut, yeshiva tuition, home prices and rents in Jewish communities are expensive, so tea party style tax breaks would be particularly welcome by most people I know. As I live in a […]
Civilization and culture in the age of Yaval, Yuval and Tuval Cain
Rabbi Daniel Yolkut of Cong. Poale Zedeck in Pittsburgh, PA, related a very interesting insight during his Shabbat morning derasha this past week. Cain’s descendant, Lemech, had three sons — Yaval, Yuval and Tuval Cain — who together appear to have developed the building blocks of civilization. Yaval was the first to systematically domesticate animals. […]
Essay on hospice care
Questions of halacha aside, the August 2, 2010, issue of New Yorker contains an excellent essay by Dr. Atul Gawande on hospice care. Hospice care focuses on treating pain and increasing the quality of life for terminally ill patients, rather than continuing to aggressively treat the underlying illness in an effort to prolong the patient’s […]
Jewish opposition to the Holocaust Insurance Accountability Act of 2010
When is a contract not a contract? JTA reports today that six Jewish organizations have signed a letter opposing the Holocaust Insurance Accountability Act of 2010. The American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, B’nai B’rith International, the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, the World Jewish Congress and the World Jewish Restitution Organization condemned […]
Child’s religious exposure in divorce case
A few interesting cases involving child custody and religion have recently been decided in Chicago. From Girl’s religion at issue in divorce war, Chicago Tribune, Feb. 17, 2010: Rebecca Reyes opened an e-mail from her estranged husband in November to learn to her shock that he had their 3-year-old daughter baptized in the Catholic Church […]
Rubashkin acquitted of child labor charges
As has been widely reported, Sholom Rubashkin was found not guilty of all 67 charges of child labor violations. The New York Times article adds: The verdict brought rare good news for Mr. Rubashkin since the raid at the plant in Postville on May 12, 2008, when federal agents arrested 389 illegal immigrants, most from […]
Federal law experts challenge the proposed life sentence for Sholom Rubashkin
From Life Sentence Is Debated for Meat Plant Ex-Chief, New York Times, 4/28/10: In a final chapter to the long aftermath of a 2008 immigration raid at a kosher meatpacking plant in Iowa, a federal court in Cedar Rapids heard arguments on Wednesday over the sentencing of Sholom Rubashkin, the former chief executive. Mr. Rubashkin […]
Healthcare reform and Pirkei Avot
According to an article in yesterday’s New York Times, votes scheduled in Congress this coming week will decide the fate of health care legislation, and with it, perhaps, the fate of the November 2010 congressional elections and the remainder of Barack Obama’s presidency. At such a critical moment in his presidency, it makes perfect sense […]
