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“Torah Law” in Israel’s Courts: Fighting WordsFriday, December 11, 2009 by David Hazony | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks
Israelis both secular and religious are right to oppose Minister Neeman’s revolutionary idea.“Torah Law” in Israel’s Courts: Bring it On
Friday, December 11, 2009 by Anshel Pfeffer | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks
One of the world’s oldest and most adaptive legal codes has much to contribute to modern legal understanding—and besides, it might find itself transformed in the process.The Stones Speak
Friday, December 11, 2009 by Brian Blondy | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks
A newly deciphered inscription verifies the events precipitating the Maccabean Revolt and the story of Hanukkah.Judaism and Academic Jewish Studies: Friends or Foes?
Friday, December 11, 2009 by The Staff | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks
A student interview with David Berger, professor and dean of graduate Jewish studies at Yeshiva University.
The New SyncretismFriday, December 11, 2009 | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
In today’s Wall Street Journal, a professor of religion casts a gimlet eye at the widespread religious promiscuity in contemporary America. “Americans are swingers as well as switchers,” he writes, “flirting with religious beliefs and practices other than their own without officially changing their religious affiliation.” As more and more Americans “are now bellying up to . . . the ‘divine deli,’” the result is a “melting down [of] the sharp edges of the world's religions,” to the detriment of all parties. Among American Jews, the best-known variant of the syncretistic syndrome is the “JewBu” phenomenon, a do-it-yourself hybrid of...
Abortion: Is There a Jewish Perspective?Thursday, December 10, 2009 | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Controversy over the Obama administration’s proposed overhaul of American health care has dwelled in part on the issue of public subsidization of abortion. Although the bill passed by the House upheld the status quo and banned such subsidies—to the dismay of its liberal supporters—the subject has not faded from sight. Amid the turmoil, little attention has focused on the question of abortion itself, its moral and ethical status. Is there a distinctive Jewish view of this matter? In practice, to judge by survey results and voting patterns, Jews hold the most permissive “pro-choice” views of any group in the American population,...
Thursday, December 10, 2009 by Jonathan Mark | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks
Why have the major media shunned the trial of a self-proclaimed soldier of Islam who murdered a woman and injured five others at the Seattle Jewish Federation?Name that Planet, in Hebrew
Thursday, December 10, 2009 | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks
A blogger considers the competition, open to all Israelis, to come up with authentic Hebrew names for Uranus and Neptune.Not a Single Ray of Hope
Thursday, December 10, 2009 by Zein al-Shami | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks
In a Kuwait daily, a Syrian liberal laments the state of the Arab world.Paganism vs. Biblical Religion
Thursday, December 10, 2009 by Yochanan Muffs | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks
Where the two converge, and where they radically part ways—as explicated by a brilliant scholar who died last weekend.
