The Orthodox community, here and in Israel, has been confronted in recent days with important issues, forcing its leaders to grapple with significant issues touching on the very definition of Orthodoxy.

For example, after Rabbi Avi Weiss, religious leader of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, recognized a woman as an equal member of his rabbinic staff, Orthodox groups mobilized to express their feelings on this startling development. (Until now, 33-year-old Sara Hurwitz was dubbed HIR’s “maharat.” She is now to be called “rabba.”)

By the time this page is read, the Armenian Genocide Resolution in Congress may be a done deal — or a dead horse. We go to press on Wednesday, the day before the bill comes up before the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee.

Some 1.5 million Armenians were reportedly massacred by the Ottoman Turks in 1915, and as the Jewish War Veterans of the USA put it, in a statement released on Wednesdayparaphrasing Gertrude Stein, “A genocide is a genocide is a genocide.” (You could also say, “If it walks like a duck….”)

In response to Alan Levin’s Jan. 22 letter, I would like to clarify for him and many other confused U.S. citizens, the difference between civil and religious marriage. I had a religious marriage, performed by a rabbi, licensed to marry in New York state. In the United States, most clerics (Jewish, Christian, Muslim) have obtained certification from the state to perform legal marriages. Within each religion, there are limitations as to whom a cleric will agree to marry. They have that right.

There are many officials who have the legal right to marry couples under state law who have no connection with any religion, including clerks in the marriage license bureau. Couples may choose to have a legal marriage by going either to a licensed official or to a cleric. The licensed official has no choice but to officiate in marrying any couple who has filed the appropriate civil papers. Any religious cleric may refuse to marry a couple, based on his/her beliefs.

A civil union is not marriage. No matter how many rights it gives those who are “unionized,” it is still not marriage. I am not gay, but my son and his significant other of 24 years are. They are “unionized.” You try to explain to whoever is questioning your spousal relationship that your civil union is the same as marriage. Maybe you feel unsafe coming out at work, but want/need the offered health insurance. How do you apply for it, without revealing that you are gay?

Marriage is a civil right. Any couple who wants it is entitled to it.

NORPAC is the largest pro-Israel Political Action Committee in our nation; it has thousands of members in your service area. AIPAC is the most important political organization in the world fighting for the survival of Israel. These two organizations do not have to repeatedly proclaim that they are pro-Israel. Their actions and policies say it for them.

Both AIPAC and NORPAC are, however, relatively and inexplicably ignored by your paper when compared to the wholly disproportionate exposure you give to J Street. We pay attention to our national leaders at the Conference of Presidents, as we believe it is better to approach members of Congress with a consensus opinion. NORPAC has never been rejected by the Israel ambassador of any coalition. It is at the forefront of sanctions against Iran. We see the proliferation of nuclear weapons coupled with threats of genocide as an issue of paramount importance. We immediately recognized the dangers of the biased Goldstone Report. Yet you virtually exclude our activities from your reporting. It almost appears as if you are rewarding disproportionate coverage to an organization because it aggressively promotes views, policies, and activities rejected by the vast majority of Israel’s government and your readership. It is pathetic, for example, to find your paper giving such disproportionate coverage to J Street’s sudden about-face in supporting the Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2009, after being against it for over a year. This legislation recently passed the U.S. Senate unanimously.

It is time for you to start giving more information and coverage to those organizations that promote the interests of your readers and that actually accomplish good for Israel and the Jewish people.

Last August, dozens of women launched a protest against the practice of separate men’s and women’s seating on some Israeli public bus routes servicing haredi communities. They boarded the buses and sat down among the men, expecting to provoke some strong reaction.

The women, some of whom were dressed in decidedly non-haredi style, expected to be forced to the area where the women passengers were sitting, but passengers largely just ignored them. On one bus, a haredi passenger did ask the driver to tell the protesters to sit among the other women, but the driver refused and the passenger returned to his seat.

Last April, two Israeli newspapers doctored photographs of the new Israeli cabinet to remove the images of two female ministers, Limor Livnat and Sofa Landver. In one paper, the women’s faces were replaced with two male ministers; in the other they were blotted out.

The erasure of the women’s faces was in accordance with the ultra-Orthodox view that it is immodest to print images of women.

Last week I was honored to speak to the Jewish community of Venice, Italy. Having just returned from Haiti, I addressed the issue of why a good God allows the innocent to suffer. I was amazed when an observant Jew approached me to say that the people of Haiti were not innocent, immersed as they are in voodoo, witchcraft, and idol-worship.

I said, “Surely you don’t mean to say that the morgue filled with the babies that I witnessed, the stench so bad that I was gagging, deserved to die? Or that the discarded bodies I saw being eaten by scavenger dogs deserved their fate?” His response: The people of Haiti as a whole were punished. A similar sentiment had earlier been voiced by the Rev. Pat Robertson on The 700 Club.

As we prepare to mark Purim tomorrow night we cannot help looking at the parallels between the Megillah and current events.

Haman was the chief minister of Persia, subservient only to King Ahasuerus. When Mordechai the Jew refused to bow down to him, Haman launched a plot to kill him and all the other Jews in the land.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on the other hand, is president of Iran, subservient only to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Under the leadership of the ayatollah, Iran is a major sponsor of Hamas and Hezbollah. Ahmadinejad has also called into question historic facts, such as the Holocaust, in order to delegitimize Israel. If Iran attains the ability to create a nuclear weapon — which Israel and the West suspect is its goal — then it will not only directly threaten Israel, but the Iranian regime could also pass along such a weapon to one of its terrorist proxies.