American Judaism
Before the LawTuesday, June 7, 2011 by Suzanne Last Stone and Alan M. Dershowitz | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
The holiday of Shavuot, which falls this year on June 8 and 9, commemorates the giving of the Law. In video interviews conducted by the Israeli media agency Leadel, the prominent legal scholars Suzanne Last Stone and Alan M. Dershowitz explain the differences between Jewish law and Western law, and how their own interest in the former has informed their careers in the latter. —The Editors
The Forgotten FestivalMonday, June 6, 2011 by Michael Carasik | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
The holiday of Shavuot, which begins this year on Tuesday evening, is the orphan among Jewish holidays; it is the forgotten festival. Let me count the ways.
Jews and CapitalismFriday, June 3, 2011 by Elliot Jager | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Why are so many Jews discomfited by capitalism—and not merely by the caricature of capitalism as rapacious speculation and exploitative profiteering but by the very idea of organizing an economy along free-market lines?
The Anthropology of AIPACTuesday, May 31, 2011 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Few events in contemporary American Jewish life generate as much passion as the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), held in Washington this year on May 22-24. The best way to view the over 10,000 conference participants may be in terms of a tribe or small society.
American Orthodoxy and Its DiscontentsFriday, May 27, 2011 by Lawrence Grossman | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
A "case study in institutional decay": that description of Orthodox Judaism in America was offered in 1955 by the late sociologist Marshall Sklare. It has long since entered the gallery of scholarly misjudgments, acknowledged as such by Sklare when events turned out to belie his assessment.
From the Four CornersTuesday, May 24, 2011 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Are most Jews white? The impression that this is so is partially the result of the calamitous and decimating events of the 20th century, in which the great centers of Europe were lost to Nazi genocide while those of the Middle East and North Africa were lost to Islam.
Israel and Western GuiltFriday, May 20, 2011 by Aryeh Tepper | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
"Confront Your Privilege." So reads a "subtly coercive" sign on display at tony American liberal-arts colleges. Why coercive? Because, as Wilfred McClay explains in an illuminating recent essay in First Things, what such signs are really telling the students is, "Feel Guilty."
What Would Ben-Gurion Do?Thursday, May 19, 2011 by Elliot Jager | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
How would David Ben-Gurion handle himself if he were the one scheduled to meet Barack Obama on May 20 and address a joint session of the U.S. Congress a few days later? That hypothetical question has been aired frequently by Israelis in the run-up to Benjamin Netanyahu's pending appointments in Washington.
The Life of PrayerTuesday, May 17, 2011 by Yehudah Mirsky | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Prayer has never been easy, as the Psalmist well knew: "For there is no word on my tongue; You, O Lord, know them all" (139: 4). And even if there are words on the tongue, the results can be distressingly uncertain, or worse: "My God, I call out by day and You do not answer; by night, there is no respite for me" (22:2). It hasn’t gotten easier since then.
Agitprop in AmericaThursday, May 12, 2011 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
The tempest has subsided, and the playwright Tony Kushner will receive his honorary doctorate from the City University of New York after all. After a single trustee convinced the majority of his fellow board members to deny the award on the basis of Kushner's viciously negative pronouncements about Israel, the weight of almost the entire New York cultural apparatus was brought to bear.
Editors' Picks
An Abundance of Haggadot Jewish Ideas Daily. Through the Haggadah, wrote the late Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, "the memory of the nation is annually revived . . . and the collective hope sustained." Yet precisely that sense of the collective seems absent from many of today's Haggadot, even the best of them.
Making a Hash of the Haggadah Michael Medved, Commentary. The impulse to revise and update the prescribed Passover service remains unquenchable, yielding results that range from the odd to the preposterous.
The Writing on the Synagogue Wall Shmuly Yanklowitz, Forward. James Kugel warned of the "Ceremonial Hall Synagogue," the "Nostalgia Center," and the "Davening Club." Are we witnessing the demise of the synagogue—and should we try to save it?
Dovecoattails Alex Klein, Tablet. "Can you build an organization which is an alternative and not attract all the haters of Israel?" Forty years ago, the pressure group Breira tried it—and J Street's director is hoping the comparison works in his organization's favor.
Beinart the Unwise Sol Stern, Commentary. What is wrong with The Crisis of Zionism is contained within its title: Zionism itself is not in crisis. The liberal Zionism that Peter Beinart espouses is.
Toeing the Church-State Line Julie Wiener, Jewish Week. Hebrew charter schools offer the chance to educate large numbers of American Jewish children in Hebrew and Israeli culture—at taxpayers' expense—and thus are making many inside and outside the Jewish world nervous.
The Harlem Document William Meyers, Standpoint. Although the Photo League was never a big organization, it was famous for the names associated with it, and infamous for its ties to the Communist party. (Slideshow)
The Peace Process Undermines Support for Israel Evelyn Gordon, Contentions. A somewhat-counterintuitive poll shows that Israel's downplaying its own rights for the sake of "peace" turns out to be the worst strategy it can pursue.
Look Out Bellow! Evan Hughes, Awl. After Saul Bellow was cuckolded, he was murderously angry and spoke of getting a gun. Instead, he got to work—and the result in no small way helped him win the Nobel Prize.
A Tale of Two Synagogues David Gelernter, Jewish Review of Books. Frank Lloyd Wright's sprawling celebration of suburban Judaism echoes the shape of a long-ago building in Poland. And that echo tells us something about the remarkable history of synagogue architecture. (With images)