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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...
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.Germany Rethinking Iran
Friday, January 29, 2010 by David Gordon Smith | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks
Given its special ties with Jerusalem, can Berlin any longer conduct business as usual with Tehran?Marching to Post-Orthodoxy
Friday, January 29, 2010 by Gil Student | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks
With the ordination of a "rabbah," the growing split within Orthodoxy may have reached its Rubicon.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.Israel Made Me Do It
Thursday, January 28, 2010 by Phyllis Chesler | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks
Deconstructing the sponsorship, the methods, and the conclusions of a study in Britain's premier medical journal on why Palestinian men beat their wives.How Hard?
Thursday, January 28, 2010 by Tom Gross | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks
In going from extreme optimism to extreme pessimism on the Middle East, Obama has been wrong at least twice over.
