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Haredim and the InternetMonday, February 1, 2010 by Miriam Shaviv | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks
In struggling to control their community's access to the worldwide web, Israel's ultra-Orthodox rabbis may be losing a larger battle.
Tikkun OlamMonday, February 1, 2010 | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
If Israel's army was especially conspicuous during the early rescue and recovery efforts in Haiti, other Jewish agencies have been working on or behind the scenes as well. Among them is a coalition coordinated by the Joint Distribution Committee, the Jewish relief agency in continuous operation since World War I. According to the coalition's website, its Haiti-related work "demonstrates the age-old Jewish tradition of tikkun olam, or helping to repair the world." The phrase tikkun olam is indeed age-old, but its traditional meaning is very far from present-day connotations. The term originally appears in the second-century Mishnah to denote a specific set of...
Monday, February 1, 2010 by Howard Schneider | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks
At the UN, a cluster of tiny Pacific nations help make up what Israeli diplomats call their "moral minority."The Vatican and the Kabbalah
Monday, February 1, 2010 by Moshe Idel | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks
A number of unique manuscripts in the Biblioteca Apostolica have contributed significantly to the scholarship of Jewish mysticism.Is Goldman Sachs Jewish? What If It Is?
Monday, February 1, 2010 by Michael Kinsley | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks
When does criticizing the giant investment bank cross a line into anti-Semitism?The Binationalist Fantasy
Friday, January 29, 2010 by Alexander Yakobson | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks
Contrary to a prominent Israeli advocate of Israeli-Palestinian unity, a division into two states is the only viable solution, so long as a Jewish minority can exist in the Palestinian state.Painted Ghosts
Friday, January 29, 2010 by Bataween | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks
Behind the official vogue for restoring synagogues in Arab countries lie cynicism and greed.
Tu b’Shevat: What Sorts of Trees are We?Friday, January 29, 2010 | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Deuteronomy 20, discussing the laws of war, and in particular siege, forbids the cutting down of fruit trees, adding, in an ambiguous and tantalizing phrase, "ki ha-adam etz ha-sadeh." The words can be translated as a simple if enigmatic statement ("for man is a tree of the field") or as a question (in the rendering of the JPS Torah,"are trees of the field human?"). The classical commentators were likewise divided. The Talmud, reading the phrase as a statement, is moved to offer a prototype of a human "tree of the field": a virtuous sage, a worthy teacher and role model. Rashi, the...
Friday, January 29, 2010 by Dan Shvartsman | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks
In a wildly successful musical project, Israel's fractious diversity is at least momentarily harmonized.Frisco Kids
Friday, January 29, 2010 by Dan Pines | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks
Reasons to celebrate a new and comprehensive history of Jews in the San Francisco Bay Area.