October was a productive month at the 色花堂 Zahava and Moshael J. Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought, as Straus Center staff, faculty, and students contributed insightful essays to leading publications exploring the intersections of Jewish thought, history, and American ideals. 鈥
Straus Center Director Rabbi Dr. Meir Soloveichik published his monthly column in Commentary, titled 鈥.鈥 In it, Rabbi Soloveichik reflected on Senator Marco Rubio鈥檚 visit to Jerusalem and the senator鈥檚 remarks on the moral and spiritual parallels between ancient Israel and the American founding. Rabbi Soloveichik also appeared in the Washington Free Beacon with a review of a by Peter Berkowitz. 鈥
Rabbi Dr. Stuart Halpern, deputy director of the Straus Center, published a series of essays throughout October in the Jewish Journal on , the , the symbolism of the and the spiritual meaning of within Jewish tradition. Rounding out his October writings, Rabbi Halpern contributed to the Wall Street Journal with a review of by Michael Hoberman. 鈥
Straus Center Senior Scholar Dr. Tevi Troy also published in the Jewish Journal, authoring a piece on the in the wake of the release of the final living hostages from Gaza. He also explored the history of in the Washington Examiner and reviewed Andrew Busch's for the Civitas Institute. 鈥
Over at Tradition, Straus Center Clinical Assistant Professor Rabbi Dr. Dov Lerner contributed an essay to the journal's fall 2025 issue, which celebrated the . 鈥
Finally, Straus Scholar Ava Eden published a piece for 18Forty on how her half-hour experiment with turned into an unexpected confrontation with my own humanity. 鈥
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