Classes by Mordechai Dinerman

Wine: Blind Tastes, Price Controls, and the Most Regulated Wine Market You’ve Ever Seen

This class takes us inside the Jewish wine economy of earlier centuries. We will see communities enforcing price ceilings, outlawing seller collusion, and appointing assessors to protect community members from being overcharged. In some places, the system became so aggressively strict: monopoly-style selling rights, blind tastings, barrels sealed by wine assessors, community-owned measuring jugs, and stiff fines for anyone who tried to sell wine off the books. Wine: Blind Tastes, Price Controls, and the Most Regulated Wine Market You’ve Ever Seen

Isaiah 53 on Trial: The 1863 Vienna Case That Split Jewish Leadership

In the mid-1860s, a wave of rabbinic correspondence swept across central and eastern Europe as leading rabbis grappled with a vexing dilemma: how to respond to an antisemitic trial that touched directly on core points of Jewish theology. This case pitted antisemites against Jews, and within the Jewish community, enlightened progressives against traditionalists. Navigating this reality proved deeply contentious. Isaiah 53 on Trial: The 1863 Vienna Case That Split Jewish Leadership

The Hostage Dilemma: Part IV (Israel, 1979–1987)

In this final class of the series, we explore the Rebbe’s comments about Israel’s lopsided hostage deals during the late 1970s and 1980s, alongside the perspectives of other poskim during that period. The Hostage Dilemma: Part IV (Israel, 1979–1987)

The Hostage Dilemma: Part III (Israel, 1970–1976)

In this class (third of a four-part series), we look at the halachic debate over freeing hostages as it unfolded in Israel during the 1970s. After the September 1970 triple hijacking, several poskim weighed in on whether it was permitted to meet the terrorists’ demands. The discussion resurfaced a few years later after the Yom Kippur War, and then again in the wake of the famous Entebbe raid in 1976. The Hostage Dilemma: Part III (Israel, 1970–1976)

The Hostage Dilemma: Part II

Today, we’re returning to the topic of hostages in Jewish history. Last time, we spent most of our attention on the exceptions to the rule. This time, we’re looking at cases where the Mishnah’s ban on overpaying played at least a partial role in shaping actual halachic decisions and communal policy. And yet, as we will see, the overarching conclusion that we reached in the prior class will hold: overpaying often occurred. And it’s all a step closer to discussing this dilemma in the contemporary context, which we will do in an upcoming class. The Hostage Dilemma: Part II