Faith & People
At Last, ZionFriday, September 21, 2012 by Charles Krauthammer | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Milan Kundera once defined a small nation as "one whose very existence may be put in question at any moment; a small nation can disappear, and it knows it." Israel is a small country. This is not to say that extinction is its fate. Only that it can be.
“I, and Not an Angel”Thursday, September 20, 2012 by Shlomo M. Brody | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
"Warning: The Following Prayer May Be Dangerous to Your Spiritual Health. Recite with Caution." When was the last time you saw this kind of warning in a prayer book? Yet in most Ashkenazic S’lihot prayer books, that is the message that actually accompanies one of the hymns.
Yeshiva RevolutionFriday, September 7, 2012 by Yoel Finkelman | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Shaul Stampfer, one of Israel's foremost experts on Eastern European Jewry, is the most unlikely of iconoclasts. A thin, quiet, unassuming man, he gives the impression that he would have been happy as a simple melamed (elementary school teacher) in the shtetls he describes.
Are Day School Vouchers the Answer?Tuesday, August 28, 2012 by Moshe Sokolow | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Is Jewish education a parental or communal responsibility? The privately funded heder, with its melamed, or tutor, emphasizes the parental aspect. The publicly maintained talmud torah, or congregational school, emphasizes the communal obligation.
The Road Not TakenFriday, August 24, 2012 by Johanna Kaplan | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
In my unusually large, far-flung, contentious, loopy contingent of maternal first cousins, the quandary of aliyah, or not, at one time or another, has possessed—pierced—nearly all of us. And this is so despite the great divergence in our ages, interests, temperaments . . .
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."
Danube BluesThursday, July 12, 2012 by Elliot Jager | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
"Be sure not to wear a kippah on the street," a veteran Hungarian-Israeli businessman cautioned as we disembarked at Budapest's Ferihegy Airport. With public opinion surveys showing it to be among the most anti-Semitic countries in Europe, I took warnings to be Jewishly discreet to heart throughout our visit to the Hungarian capital.
The End is NighFriday, July 6, 2012 by Allan Arkush | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Richard Landes tells us on the very first page of Heaven on Earth: The Varieties of the Millennial Experience that he isn’t going to confine himself to the usual suspects.
When Jews Became DoctorsFriday, June 22, 2012 by Jacob Friedman | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
The study of medicine has fascinated the Jewish imagination for centuries, from the mysterious remedies of the Talmud to the medieval medical practice of Maimonides and the modern age of my-son-the-doctor bragging rights.
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.
Editors' Picks
Rav Ovadia’s Revolution , Menachem Mendel. “Like Coca-Cola, l’havdil”: A video documentary on the idiosyncratic, infuriating genius of the Baghdadi gaon and the transformation of Sephardic Jewry in Israel.
Is Journalism Just Lashon Hara? Pinchas Landau, Institute for Jewish Ideas. Halakhah has yet to confront the gamut of prohibitions violated by modern mass media, from the sin of rekhilut to the greater sin of motsi shem ra, or slander.
Lebanon’s Unholy Bedfellows Hilal Khashan, Middle East Quarterly. In Lebanon the Maronites are Christian liberals, while the Shiites are Islamic theocrats. The contradiction hasn’t kept them from an alliance based on resentment of Sunni domination.
Are “Nigeria’s Jews” Jewish? Tali Farkash, Ynet. Caught in the crossfire between the Muslim North and the Christian West, all the Igbo want from the world’s Jews is recognition. But are their aims political or religious?
The Biggest Jewish Genetic Myths Sala Levin, Moment. Ashkenazi Jews are not real Jews; Jews live longer than others; Jews have more red hair than the Irish; we all descend from Eve: only one of these statements is true.
The “Kosher for Passover” Tombstone Harvey Leifert, Washington Jewish Week. It was the stuff of urban legend in Namibia two decades ago, but elders of the country's Jewish community insisted it was true.
Inquisition Tourism Hilary Larson, Jewish Week. Five hundred years after the expulsion of Jews, and twenty since their official readmittance, scarcely any Jews live in Spain today. But a new tourist campaign hopes at least to bring them back on vacation.
The Fourth of July and the Jews Joseph Michelson, JWeekly. “So, what is so unusual about our sojourn with America? It is, in terms of historical significance, perhaps the most beneficent, generous, and happy marriage we, as a people, have ever had!”
New York’s First—and Last—Chief Rabbi Avraham Kelman, Jewish Press. In the 1880’s, New York’s Jewish community was lax in practice and lacking in direction. Nor did it want to change—as Yaakov Yosef discovered to his detriment.
Different, or the Same? Jack Wertheimer, Jewish Ideas Daily. For over a century, American Jews have asserted that America and the Jews are a perfect fit. Is it true?