Education
Jerusalem and AthensMonday, December 26, 2011 by Leo Strauss | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
The holiday of Hanukkah is, in part, a celebration of the victory of traditionalist Jews over Jews bent on assimilation to Greek Seleucid culture. As such, the second-century B.C.E. Maccabean revolt has resonated throughout the ages not only as a key historical contest, but as a wellspring for interpretations of the divergent views of the Hebrews and the Greeks.
People of the ByteTuesday, November 15, 2011 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Jews have long been the People of the Book. But as computers replace books and possibly libraries, museums, and universities, will they soon be the People of the Byte?
Eating Your ValuesFriday, November 4, 2011 | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
The many Jewish laws regarding food—how it gets from the ground and into our mouths in a kosher manner—are central to Jewish life. But what ethical framework underlies the system of kashrut? Maimonides' justifications for kashrut range from avoiding cruelty to animals and eschewing the idolatrous practices of antiquity to considerations of health.
The Genesis of Modern ScienceTuesday, October 18, 2011 by David Curzon | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Descartes, Newton, and the other founders of modern science were all believers in the truths of the opening chapter in the Hebrew Bible.
Who Owns Maimonides?Wednesday, October 5, 2011 by Joshua Halberstam | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Abraham Joshua Heschel once suggested that if one didn't know that "Maimonides" was a person, one would assume it was the name of a university. Heschel was referring to the monumental breadth and influence of the 12th-century philosopher's work.
Career CorpsTuesday, October 4, 2011 by Elliot Jager | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
The United States has its military academies at West Point and Annapolis. The British put their officers through Sandhurst. But how will the Israeli Defense Forces, a citizen army, train its officers for the 21st century?
Israel Studies 101Monday, October 3, 2011 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
The modern American research university is a house of many rooms. The field of Israel Studies, which has emerged in the past decade, occupies one of the newest—and smallest—of those rooms.
Rosh Hashanah with the Chief RabbiTuesday, September 20, 2011 by Lawrence Grossman | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Ten years ago, the first day of Rosh Hashanah—the two-day Jewish New Year—fell on September 18. That was one week after September 11, 2001, when almost 3,000 people were killed by Muslim terrorists. On that Rosh Hashanah, rabbis did not lack for sermon topics.
Too Many Museums?Tuesday, August 23, 2011 by Diana Muir Appelbaum | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Although the paint is still wet on Philadelphia's National Museum of American Jewish History, an announcement has just been made of a planned National Museum of the Jewish People in Washington, D.C., steps from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and not far from two other Jewish museums.
Reconstructing JudaismWednesday, August 3, 2011 by Joseph J. Siev | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
At a time when all three major Jewish denominations in America—Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform—find themselves in a state of deep internal fracture, a fourth and much smaller movement, Reconstructionism, has just voted to create a unified body to coordinate the activities of its lay and rabbinical arms.
Editors' Picks
Talmud and Technology Alan Jacobs, Atlantic. Although the challenges posed by the Internet are serious, Jews have long disputed how to deal with new technology—and faced similar dilemmas with the printing press.
Reading and Religion Jeffrey Saks, Torah Musings. The late Ray Bradbury's dystopian vision of a world without books in Farenheit 451 shows that there is no substitute for reading as moral education—and as a route to spiritual maturity.
Jewish is the New Black Peter Wood, Chronicle of Higher Education. Identity group labels seldom work as their proponents hope—and at CUNY, some faculty members see a new taxonomy as rife with the potential to become a tool of exclusion.
Transit of Venus Jeremy Brown, Rationalist Judaism. Three rabbinic responsa to the rare astronomical phenomenon visible today, and what it means for a Copernican—and a Jewish—world view.
The Macaronic Talmud Yair Furstenberg, Talmud Blog. The rabbis of the Talmud were not only exposed to Greek, but proficient enough to cunningly manipulate the language with wordplay and puns.
True Torah, True Science Seth Kadish, Rationalist Judaiam. Two strikingly different medieval paradigms show that when facing apparent conflicts between science and Torah, the worst possible solution is to sanitize the former or censor the latter.
Studying Bible with Bibi Herb Keinon, Jerusalem Post. This past Wednesday, while the world powers engaged in talks with the Iranians, and Israel was rocked by protests about immigration, Prime Minister Netanyahu sat down to contemplate the book of Ruth.
Dragoman Eric Ormsby, Wall Street Journal. Though Bernard Lewis is firmly opposed to historical relativists, he is keenly aware of the sheer slipperiness of historical terrain.
Stubborn Hope David P. Goldman, Tablet. Bernard Lewis' hopes for Muslim society resonated with characteristic American generosity and optimism. And so his disappointment also is ours.
Sorrow in the Talmud Marc Bregman, H-Net. Counterintuitively, traditional Jewish teaching inculcated right behavior by relating how even the greatest leaders sometimes failed to behave according to their own principles.