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Michael Boyden

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Jul 5, 2018, 9:10 PM

Jews Control the Planet Earth

I feel sure that Shas's newest Knesset Member, Yinon Azoulai, would find it strange to be lumped together with an Iranian brigadier general, but their shared bigotry makes them suitable bed partners. Perhaps that's what happens when religious zealotry...

Jun 23, 2018, 11:41 PM

A Message to the IfNotNow Folk

Hi there. I understand that you distributed granola to Birthright participants at JFK airport last week and then presented them with material criticizing Israel's military occupation of the West Bank. The purpose of Birthright is to encourage young people to...

Jun 14, 2018, 2:20 PM

The Disappearing Jew

No one who cares about the future of the Jewish People can remain indifferent to what is happening to much of American Jewry. Of course the same phenomena exist to some degree in other Diaspora communities. However, since US...

Jun 3, 2018, 11:47 PM

The Diaspora is slipping away

Imagine that you are standing on the quayside as a ship departs and sails away, gradually becoming a dot on the horizon and finally disappearing. Once it was there right by your side, but time has served to distance...

Jun 2, 2018, 11:00 PM

The Jewish Vatican

The Chief Rabbis of Israel, Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef (L) and Rabbi David Lau (R) speaks during an event, on January 11, 2016. (Yaakov Coehn/Flash90)

Blame the growing disconnect between global Jewry and the Israeli Chief Rabbinate on the rabbis' power grab

May 26, 2018, 8:50 PM

In Defence of Barriers

There was something uncannily symbolic in the fact that the flimsy, ill-fitting kippah that the writer, Michael Chabon, wore fell off his head in the middle of his presentation as he addressed the students and their families at their...

Apr 11, 2018, 12:10 AM

Don’t eat kosher – It’s treif!

I knew there was a problem with kashrut when I was a child. One of my memories is of entering a kosher butcher's shop with my mother in North-West London and seeing his assistant sitting on the meat slab...

Mar 13, 2018, 1:13 PM

Killing oneself in Torah study

Police remove ultra-Orthodox demonstrators who are blocking a road during a protest against army conscription in the city of Bnei Brak, near Tel Aviv, on March 12, 2018. (AFP PHOTO / Ahmad GHARABLI)

We whose family members have died in Israel’s wars don't happen to think Haredim 'kill' themselves learning

Jan 9, 2018, 4:26 PM

An Open Letter to Aryeh Deri

Dear Minister Deri, I am sure that you and your charedi coalition partners must be rubbing their hands with glee at their success in having passed into law the controversial minimarkets bill by a vote of 58 to 57, therefore...

Dec 6, 2017, 10:05 AM

Jerusalem the Eternal

As an Israeli, I find it difficult to get excited about President Trump's much publicized and long awaited declaration that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. Oxford Dictionaries define a capital as being "the city or town that functions as...

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About Me

Rabbi Boyden was educated and received his rabbinical ordination in London, England. Having served as the rabbi of Cheshire Reform Congregation for thirteen years, he made aliyah with his family in 1985. He has established Reform congregations in Ra'anana and Hod Hasharon and previously served as director of the Israel Reform Movement's Beit Din.