Avi Shafran
Avi Shafran is an author at Religion News Service.
All Stories by Avi Shafran
The countercultural joys of a big family
By Avi Shafran — May 2, 2024
(RNS) — Outsiders often look upon large Orthodox Jewish families with scorn, others with pity.
Safeguarding Israel with Torah study
By Avi Shafran — March 12, 2024
(RNS) — The question of Haredi conscription is not a matter of political privilege but religious liberty.
The ‘death’ of the brain should not decide the fate of the body
By Avi Shafran — February 15, 2024
(RNS) — What is really driving the decision to say a life is over?
Yes, Biden and Trump are old. Jewish teaching says that can be a good thing.
By Avi Shafran — January 29, 2024
(RNS) — Look what happened when Judean King Rehoboam shunned the advice of the court elders.
Loaded words can end with loaded guns
By Avi Shafran — December 12, 2023
(RNS) — ‘Genocide,’ ‘apartheid’ and ‘terrorism’ are being loosely employed — and grossly misused.
Painting asylum-seekers as potential threats is an old, cynical game
By Avi Shafran — September 13, 2023
(RNS) — Fears of malefactors entering the U.S. among legitimate asylum-seekers are overblown.
Secular Israelis have workarounds for Sabbath rules. It’s their loss.
By Avi Shafran — August 9, 2023
(RNS) — Even nonreligious visitors to Jerusalem’s religious neighborhoods marvel at Shabbat's calm.
We hoped for a miracle for OceanGate’s Titan crew. We ignore the ones waiting for us every day.
By Avi Shafran — June 30, 2023
(RNS) — The rabbis of the Talmud enjoined us to express boundless gratitude at our waking every day.
Biden White House plan to fight antisemitism has its faults. Let’s welcome what’s good.
By Avi Shafran — June 14, 2023
(RNS) — An unprecedented government effort to combat a pressing problem overcomes its own flaws.
Freedom was granted at Passover. It was defined on Shavuot.
By Avi Shafran — May 24, 2023
(RNS) — The Festival of Weeks shows that true freedom comes in endeavoring to live a 'mission-focused' life.
Passover reminds us why a nation needs to remember its ‘bad old times’
By Avi Shafran — April 3, 2023
(RNS) — The holiday is about recalling uncomfortable truths, an exercise every American can benefit from.
Queen Vashti is not the feminist symbol many want her to be
By Avi Shafran — March 6, 2023
(RNS) — It’s sad to see a carefully preserved Jewish historical tradition sacrificed on the altar of a contemporary ism.
Time to remember more than one atrocity? A defense of Holocaust Remembrance Day
By Avi Shafran — February 1, 2023
(RNS) — There’s a reason we take a special day to remember the Holocaust.
Why Israel’s Orthodox Jewish parties want to narrow the country’s ‘Law of Return’
By Avi Shafran — January 11, 2023
(RNS) — The Orthodox parties see the law as a recipe for increased intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews.
Signs invited Jews to visit the Temple Mount. Why Israel’s chief rabbi forbade them.
By Avi Shafran — December 20, 2022
(RNS) — Jewish nationalists bent on affirming the Jewish connection to the Mount have increasingly visited the site.
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