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The Genius of Yiddish
Saturday, December 19, 2009 by Benny Mer | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks

Thoughts on a new Hebrew translation of Sholem Aleichem's masterpiece.
Perfidious Albion? Perfidious Albion?
Friday, December 18, 2009 | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

The British government's announcement on Tuesday that it would no longer tolerate the legal harassment of visiting foreign officials put a halt to speculations of an arrest warrant for Tzipi Livni, Israel's former foreign minister and now leader of the opposition in the Knesset. But it has not ended the uproar over Israel's alleged war crimes—Ms. Livni vocally supported her country's invasion of Gaza to stop rocket fire by Hamas—or over the principle of "universal jurisdiction" invoked by judges hoping to hold foreign (read, Israeli) dignitaries for prosecution. On one Arab website, an Israeli musician living in England lambastes the British...
School Daze School Daze
Thursday, December 17, 2009 | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

In a narrow decision by the UK Supreme Court, an Orthodox school in London has been ruled in violation of the country's race-relations law for refusing admission to the son of a non-Orthodox convert. "The judges knew they were handling a hot potato," comments the author of a 2008 report on the future of Jewish schools in the UK, who reads the decision as an open invitation to Parliament to revisit and re-write a defective law. But alarm bells have been ringing loudly in the Jewish community ever since the case started its way through the lower courts; the columnist...
Rebecca and the Cash Nexus
Wednesday, December 16, 2009 by Daphne Merkin | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks

Why do money and money-making figure so prominently in the literature provided by American Girl for its first Jewish doll?
Temple & Synagogue Temple & Synagogue
Wednesday, December 16, 2009 | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

The structure defiled by the pagan Greeks in the rabbinic story of the miracle of Hanukkah was a replacement building for the First (Solomon’s) Temple, destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E. The replacement was itself replaced by the magnificent Second Temple, completed by King Herod around 20 B.C.E. and in turn destroyed by the Romans 90 years later. By then, the centralized model of Temple worship with its sacrifices had already begun to be supplanted by prayer worship in small synagogues both inside and outside the Holy Land. Although the precise architecture of Solomon’s Temple can only be guessed at,...
What American Aliya?
Wednesday, December 16, 2009 by Haviv Rettig Gur | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks

A quarrel between the Jewish Agency and a private organization obscures a more salient fact about American Jewish immigration to Israel.
My Vienna
Wednesday, December 16, 2009 by Phyllis Chesler | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks

A violent attack on a Chabad rabbi last weekend spurs reflections on a city of Jewish dreams and nightmares.
Abbas’s No to Netanyahu’s Yes
Wednesday, December 16, 2009 by Jonathan Tobin | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks

The freeze on building in Jewish settlements has earned little or no credit in Europe or among Israel's Arab interlocutors and foes.
The Scrooge of Hanukkah
Tuesday, December 15, 2009 by Robert M. Goldberg | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks

On the dishonesty of Tony Judt.
Amplifying anti-Semitism
Tuesday, December 15, 2009 by Laura Kam | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks

On the eve of a global conference in Jerusalem, a summary look at the role of media in the new wave of physical and verbal attacks on Jews.