Mind-boggling blogs of 2021 * Damning praise for Haim Walder * Pride and backaches:My IDF service * Ice skating on Sabbath? * Christians’ complaints are real

[Times of Israel]( [The Blogs Weekly]( Thursday, December 30, 2021 From the blogs [Voices of 2021: The year that boggled our collective minds]( By [Miriam Herschlag]( [When so much seemed to go off the rails, Times of Israel bloggers offered sharp perspectives, wisdom and inspiration to guide us through the uncertainty]( [Jonathan Muskat]( [Is ice skating a proper Sabbath activity?]( [I’m a rabbi and I keep Shabbat differently than Olympic contender Hailey Kops does, but I appreciate her passion, commitment, and the complexity of her approach]( [In praising Haim Walder, Haredi media told his victims they don’t matter]( By [Scott Kahn]( [Giving a hero’s sendoff to a figure widely believed to have committed offenses sends the message that rape and sexual harassment can and will be ignored]( [Marianne Novak]( [Resisting the temptation to be God’s secretary]( [As a child, I distinctly remember that when someone truly evil died in the world my father would utter the phrase: מיתת רשעים, × ×•×— להם, × ×•×— לעולם. Loosely translated this saying means when evil people die, it provides rest for them and rest for the entire world. I always understood it to mean, in short, that it’s never bad when an evil person dies, especially if they haven’t received proper punishment in this world, for we as Jews are assured that the ultimate punishment will happen in the next world....]( [Pride, backaches, trauma: Some honesty about IDF combat service]( By [Natan Kohn-Magnus]( [The tendency to lionize combat service risks minimizing the physical, mental and professional toll that former soldiers bear for the rest of their lives]( [Ariella Nadel]( [It was 40 years before the siblings reunited]( [Joseph first went to Israel, but settled in South Africa. Mendel was a dentist in the Nazi concentration camps. And Isadore, my grandfather, went to Seattle]( [All eyes on Bethlehem]( By [Sarah Bernstein]( [Church leaders in Israel are experiencing harassment from Jewish youth conditioned to be fearful of a community that long ago stopped posing a threat]( [Steven Windmueller]( [America has bigger problems than Donald Trump]( [He exploited the discontent, anger, and worries of millions, but he didn’t create it, and we must reckon with it to heal the profound social disconnect in the US]( Top Ops [Andrew Silow-Carroll]( [Stop fighting about Israel and start listening to each other]( [When a diverse group of Jewish Brown U. students met to discuss Israel and the Palestinians, everyone felt uncomfortable. That, they say, is as it should be]( [Shuki Friedman]( [Local private rabbinic courts undermine the reason they should exist]( [A private court that is forced on litigants by the ultra-Orthodox community that sponsors it can’t properly serve those who would otherwise seek its rulings]( [Unsubscribe from this List]( Email not displaying correctly? [View in browser]( © 2021 The Times Of Israel, All Rights Reserved