Europe
Killing RathenauWednesday, June 20, 2012 by Carole Fink | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Walther Rathenau was neither a typical German Jew nor a traditional German statesman. Born into a wealthy industrialist family that had disowned its Jewish beliefs and practices and gaining political office late in life, Rathenau was the quintessential outsider.
The Baron-Cohens and the Problem of EvilThursday, May 31, 2012 by Allan Nadler | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
The pervasiveness of evil and the suffering of innocents have confounded religious believers throughout history. Jews have produced a vast literature that attempts to reconcile God's justice with evil's apparent dominion.
The Mona Lisa of ViennaWednesday, May 30, 2012 by Susan Hertog | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
In 1857, when Emperor Franz-Joseph pulled down the ancient stone wall encompassing Vienna, the social and cultural traditions of the country seemed to tumble with it. Impoverished immigrants, many of them Jews, flooded in from the east.
Sending Mein Kampf Back to SchoolTuesday, May 22, 2012 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Important literature can't be kept under wraps forever. A case in point is Mein Kampf. The German state of Bavaria, which holds the German copyright, has blocked the book's publication within Hitler's homeland.
Labor PainsWednesday, May 16, 2012 by Ben Cohen | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
If Ed Miliband, leader of Britain's Labor Party, emerges victorious from the country's next general election, he will become the first Jewish Prime Minister to inhabit Number 10 Downing Street since Benjamin Disraeli renovated the innards of that venerable residence in 1877.
What is Jewish Dance?Wednesday, May 9, 2012 by Walter Zev Feldman | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
For readers interested in the development of folk dance and, to a lesser extent, modern dance in Israel, Seeing Israeli and Jewish Dance, edited by Judith Brin Ingber, a dance scholar who has written widely on Israeli dance, is a valuable resource.
Independence DayThursday, April 26, 2012 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Every spring, within a single week, Israel commemorates Yom Hashoah, Yom Hazikaron, and Yom Ha'atzma'ut. These days revisit the core drama of the modern Jewish experience. They are also among the most controversial in the Israeli calendar.
The First Lady of Fleet StreetMonday, April 23, 2012 by Susan Hertog | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Her story is as old as Eve—lust for knowledge and power, disillusion, tragedy and rebirth—and as new as the modern world's technologically based global empires. It begins in the ghettos of Frankfurt and the cities of ancient Babylonia and ends in the mansions of Mayfair and country estates of England.
Righteous Among Our NationThursday, April 19, 2012 by Chaya Glasner | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Even before visitors walk through the door of Yad Vashem, they see a powerful tribute to Holocaust heroism. Along the Avenue of the Righteous leading to the museum, thousands of trees bloom in honor of the approximately 21,000 "Righteous Among the Nations," courageous Gentiles who defied the Nazis and risked their lives to save Jews from deportation.
Getting HitlerTuesday, April 17, 2012 by Elliot Jager | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Some cataclysmic events occur with the speed of a train wreck; others unfold over months or even years. Nassim Nicholas Taleb's 2007 bestseller The Black Swan argues that the more earth-shattering the event, the less likely that the press will provide an early warning.
Editors' Picks
Is the “Ugly Germany” Back? Dirk Kurbjuweit, Spiegel. Issues involving Nazism have dominated German politics this year. “Why all this constant rehashing of Hitler, some ask? But Hitler isn't the problem. The problem is our society.”
E Pluribus Unum? Ashley Rogers Berner, First Things. The United States requires all publicly funded schools to be secular, but several European governments provide public funding to religious schools. Which model is better?
Does Klal Yisrael Work Both Ways? Stephen G. Donshik, eJewish Philanthropy. When European or Israeli Jews are in crisis, American Jews send money. So where is the aid from Israeli and European Jews for the Jewish victims of Hurricane Sandy?
European Muslims: The Quiet Revolution Ari Varon, Haaretz. It’s the radical Islamists who get the headlines. But in the background, European Muslims, for the first time in Islamic history, may be developing a locally based Islamic-European identity.
Hitler’s Greatest Enemies Elisabeth Sifton, Fritz Stern, New York Review of Books. “One truth we can affirm: Hitler had no greater, more courageous, and more admirable enemies than Hans von Dohnanyi and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.”
Hollande Takes the Hard Line Bruce Crumley, Time. After a series of attacks against Jewish targets in France, Sunday’s anti-terror raids show that François Hollande is prepared for a fight with the country’s Islamists.
Romania’s Final Solution Michael Gesin, H-Net. Romania’s wartime leaders were so enamored of Nazi Germany that they developed their own Final Solution. So, why did half of Romania’s Jews manage to survive?
Drawing a Line Sarah Glidden, Jewish Quarterly. Angoulême is proud of its history as the center of France’s comics and animation industry. The city is less keen to acknowledge the role it played during the Second World War. (Comic)
What Was Yad Vashem Thinking? Meir Wikler, Times of Israel. Six years after the museum was called to task for its systematic underrepresentation of religious victims of the Holocaust, there’s not much evidence of change.
Education, Not Persecution Jonathan B. Krasner, Forward. Literacy explains the Jews’ scattered settlement in scores of small communities throughout Christian Europe, where the demand for skilled occupations was limited.