Search Results
You can also browse by author, browse by source, or view the archives.
The KahanesThursday, April 15, 2010 by Jonathan Mark | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks
Remembering an extremist firebrand, his retiring son, and their murderers.
The Religious KibbutzThursday, April 15, 2010 | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Alongside the centennial of the kibbutz movement, another, humbler jubilee is being marked: the 80th anniversary of Ha-kibbutz Ha-dati, the religious-kibbutz movement. A unique blend of nationalism, socialism, and religion, it has generated a legacy whose significance reaches well beyond its sixteen member communes. The kibbutz movement as a whole was, from its inception, deeply committed to religion—that is, the Tolstoyan religion of labor. The religious kibbutzim strove to wed this new religion with the old one, and thus to remake both. The aim was a return to the land that would at once revitalize the ancient moral-religious energies of the Torah and issue a...
Thursday, April 15, 2010 by Eli Clark | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks
In Jewish law, evading or cheating on one's taxes constitutes a grievous sin.Meet the Reform Rabbi
Thursday, April 15, 2010 | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks
An Orthodox blogger gives a platform to a Reform friend to introduce himself and his beliefs. (Part 2, includes link to Part 1.)The Internal Palestinian Debate
Thursday, April 15, 2010 by Max Singer | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks
Peace will become possible only when those ready to renounce the effort to destroy Israel prevail over those holding out for total victory.
Civil LibertiesWednesday, April 14, 2010 | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
No democracy serves better than Israel as a laboratory testing the limits of civil liberties under traumatic conditions. The results are sometimes incoherent, but the common denominator is that, so long as lives are not endangered, freedoms are mostly safeguarded. Some recent illustrations: a Jewish extremist was not prosecuted for holding up a sign calling the president a traitor, whereas another fell afoul of the law for advocating on the radio the expulsion of Israeli Arabs. A Galilee-based Islamist has not been charged for urging Arab students to sacrifice themselves as anti-Israel shahids [martyrs]. Left-wing organizations face no restrictions on...
Wednesday, April 14, 2010 by Jacob Berkman | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks
In a new survey, young American Jewish leaders emerge as both critical of and involved in mainstream organizations, both knowledgeable about and relatively cool toward Israel.The Dogs of War
Wednesday, April 14, 2010 by Ofer Aderet | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks
Rudolphina Menzel, an ardent Zionist and animal psychologist who trained guide dogs for the Israeli blind, began in the 1930's by supplying Hebrew-speaking dogs for the Austrian police and the German army.Orthodox in America
Wednesday, April 14, 2010 by Marc B. Shapiro | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks
A study scant in intellectual and halakhic history but rich in social analysis throws a fascinating light on the variegated and evolving world of traditionalist Jews.Pen of Iron
Wednesday, April 14, 2010 by Adam Kirsch | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks
Robert Alter's new book traces the influence on American literature of the King James Bible and, through it, not only biblical language but biblical categories of thought and morality.