Conversion
The Portuguese PhoenixTuesday, February 26, 2013 by Kevin Zdiara | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Founded to resurrect Portuguese Judaism 75 years ago, Kadoorie Mekor Haim synagogue in Porto remains a symbol of Jewish resilience, faith, and conviction.
Opening the Gates of JudaismWednesday, February 20, 2013 by Motti Inbari | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Given the demographic and spiritual decline among “biological” Jews in America, if we want to keep Judaism alive, we must do something that we haven't done for 2000 years: proselytize.
Leaving the GhettoFriday, February 8, 2013 by Jacob Katz | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
"Was there any possibility," asks Jacob Katz in this 1996 Commentary essay, "that the Jews collectively might have been accepted in Europe on their own terms—that is, as a community, with a religion opposed to Christianity?"
Denominational DelusionsWednesday, February 6, 2013 by Andrew Apostolou | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
With synagogues closing, congregations ageing, and the non-Orthodox majority dwindling, American Jews are caught in a crisis. Yet no one is tackling the root of this problem: intermarriage.
The Portuguese DreyfusWednesday, October 24, 2012 by Kevin Zdiara | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
In 1894, the Jewish Captain Alfred Dreyfus was wrongly convicted of treason by an anti-Semitic French military court. The world remembers Dreyfus. It should also remember the Jewish military officer Artur Carlos de Barros Basto, wrongly convicted by an anti-Semitic Portuguese military court in 1937.
Is Judaism a Proselytizing Religion?Friday, October 19, 2012 by Shlomo M. Brody | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
When Mitt Romney became the Republican Presidential candidate, some of the media attention focused on his experience as a Mormon missionary in France and asked, subtly or not so subtly, whether a member of a proselytizing religion could properly lead a pluralistic society.
Do Jews Curse Christians?Tuesday, July 17, 2012 by Allan Nadler | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
The patristic authority Jerome complained bitterly about the Jews’ condemnation of notsrim (believers in Jesus, “the Nazarite”), in the benediction of the daily Amidah known as Birkat ha-Minim: "three times a day in all their synagogues they anathemize the Christian name."
Englishing the TalmudTuesday, June 26, 2012 by Yehudah Mirsky | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
According to a rabbinic tradition recorded in the Talmud (Shabbat 12b), God’s angels do not understand the Aramaic language in which the Talmud itself is mainly composed. As many a modern reader can testify, they’re hardly alone.
Mumbai WeddingFriday, May 4, 2012 by Joseph Mayton | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
As the afternoon sun hit its peak, Haran and I pulled up to his small one-and-a-half-bedroom flat on the outskirts of East Mumbai, India, some 20 minutes from the airport. The building's shiny tin roof showed that money was in short supply. But inside the apartment, with Indian hospitality, Haran's wife Geeta served me perfectly spiced hot tea.
In God They Trust?Thursday, February 9, 2012 by Elliot Jager | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Stick an average alumnus of the Israeli public school system into a synagogue during morning prayers, and chances are they would be bewildered. Even if they could recollect an arid Bible class they had to endure long ago, what good would it do them? They'd still be lost.
Editors' Picks
The Conversion Crisis Marc Angel, Haaretz. "The halakhic Jewishness of an Orthodox convert is not decided by the Rabbanut—but by God. The Rabbanut has no right whatever to question or deny the validity of halakhic conversions."
Ascending to Heaven James Tabor, Bible History Daily. Though Paul of Tarsus decisively broke with Judaism, his vision of heaven in the Book of Corinthians was not so different from contemporaneous Jewish ideas.
Hanukkah Musings Gil Student, Ari Enkin, Torah Musings. From whether a convert can recite the Al ha-Nisim blessing to how to eat a donut, here are the answers to Hanukkah questions you never thought to ask. (E-book)
From Jews to Catholics—and Back Juan Forero, Washington Post. Dozens of evangelical Catholic families in northern Colombia have discovered their Jewish ancestry—and converted to Judaism. Their former minister says, “It was like our souls had memory.”
The Mitzvah of Conversion Haim Amsalem, Institute for Jewish Ideas. It is not only permissible but a mitzvah, the Sepharic rabbi argues, to make it easy for people of Jewish ancestry—like Israel’s Russian immigrants—to convert to Judaism.
France’s Jewish Archbishop Robert Zaretsky, Forward. The chief rabbi of Paris declared that “One cannot be both a Christian and a Jew.” But Jean-Marie (Aron) Lustiger never surrendered his double identity.
Jewish-Born Catholic Theologians Alan Brill, Forward. While the revolution in the Vatican’s attitude to Jews, led by converts from Judaism, was by no means inevitable, the changes in Catholic doctrine are here to stay.
Keep Religion out of Israeli Adoptions Jerusalem Post. When conversion becomes a condition for adoption, the process is easily distorted—by pressures on rabbinical conversion court judges and prospective parents.
We Failed Zuckerberg Dana Evan Kaplan, Forward. A Reform rabbi argues that his movement's pluralistic theology is to blame for the detachment of young Jews from their faith.
Making "Unofficial" Jews Official Dianna Cahn, Times of Israel. Bulgaria's fast-track conversions for Jews whose identity has been erased under Communism might not meet the standards of the Israeli chief rabbinate—but the alternative is to lose them altogether.