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Beyond “Religious” and “Secular”Wednesday, May 11, 2011 by Yehudah Mirsky | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
What should be the place of the Jewish religion in a Jewish state? There are many putative answers to this question, and the answers have changed over time. When Zionism was still an aspiration, a great blank yet to be filled in, the terms of debate were set by a self-confidently secular dispensation preoccupied with state- and institution-building. In the first few decades of statehood, religion, though state-established, was clearly subservient.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011 by Sol Stern | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks
A masterful reporter, the independent journalist Michael J. Totten delivers assessments of the Hizballah movement that perennially escape the mainstream media.B’har: Liberty and the Jubilee
Wednesday, May 11, 2011 by Michael Carasik | Jewish Ideas Daily » Weekly Portions
This week's reading, though little more than a single chapter, deals with two separate topics: first, the sabbatical year; second, the obligations of family members to a relative in economic distress. What links them is a focus, unusual for the Torah, on macroeconomics.What I Learned in Bethlehem
Wednesday, May 11, 2011 by Mishy Harman | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks
At a conference of progressive Palestinians, a self-identified Israeli left-winger experiences a conversion; he is now a self-identified Zionist left-winger.The Tale of Maimonides and Peter
Wednesday, May 11, 2011 by Fred MacDowell | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks
Was the great religious philosopher a heretic, as some medieval rabbis thought? A legend extant in many versions tells how he dramatically and successfully dispelled the charge.A Sad Job Done Well
Wednesday, May 11, 2011 by Michael McDonald | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks
What is the single best book for understanding the political tragedies of the 20th century? The Gulag Archipelago? 1984? Try the little-known Czech writer Heda Kovály's Under a Cruel Star.Naturally Neural
Wednesday, May 11, 2011 by Nadine Epstein | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks
Did being Jewish help the journalist Joshua Foer win the U.S. Memory Championship?New, Tenuous Lease on Life
Tuesday, May 10, 2011 by Daniel Gordis | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks
Israelis are celebrating their country's 63rd birthday in the knowledge that in 50 years it might continue to be a thriving democracy—or it could no longer exist. Jewish Minutemen
Tuesday, May 10, 2011 | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Picks
In 1948-49, scores of volunteers from English-speaking countries came to Israel to help with the struggle for independence. (Video)
Israel: The MiracleTuesday, May 10, 2011 by Paul Johnson | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
The state of Israel is the product of more than 4,000 years of Jewish history. "If you want to understand our country, read this!" said David Ben-Gurion on the first occasion I met him, in 1957. And he slapped the Bible. But the creation and survival of Israel are also very much a 20th-century phenomenon.
