History
Renaissance MenMonday, November 5, 2012 by Adina M. Yoffie | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Hugo Grotius. Isaac Abravanel. Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. These are not names normally mentioned in the same breath, but taken together, their experiences with and thoughts regarding interfaith encounters are instructive.
Does Jacob Hate Esau?Monday, October 29, 2012 by Jerome A. Chanes | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Jews have traditionally kept non-Jews at arm’s length. The rabbinic approach to anti-Semitism may be summarized as Halakhah hi b’yadu’a she-Eisav sonei et Yaakov, “It is an established normative principle that Esau hates Jacob.”
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.
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.
The Aleppo Codex and the Ownership of TraditionWednesday, September 12, 2012 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
The Torah belongs to all Jews and, indeed, to anyone who cares to learn and live its ways. But it is not transparent.
Return to FuldaTuesday, September 11, 2012 by Kenneth R. Weinstein | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Once my son Harry’s bar mitzvah teacher told him he was ready to read Torah and Haftarah fluently anywhere in the world, Harry decided that after his bar mitzvah in Washington, D.C. he would have a second bar mitzvah in Fulda, Germany.
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.
Until a Hundred TwentyTuesday, August 21, 2012 by Hillel Fradkin | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Bernard Lewis has published many books on the history of the Middle East and Islam. On these subjects he is, simply, the pre-eminent authority. At 96, he has now published yet another book: a memoir.
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
Abraham's Magnificent Home Town Jane Arraf, Christian Science Monitor. A British archeologist, returned to Iraq for the first time in a quarter-century, unearths a temple or palace of “breathtaking” size near the Ur of Abraham’s era.
Learning from Herod Shmuel Browns, Popular Archaeology. King Herod’s legacy is problematic, but his standing as a master builder is not. The current Israel Museum exhibit on his architecture and artifacts would have made Herod himself proud.
A Meaningful Fast Avi S. Olitzky, TC Jewfolk. Our Yom Kippur fast is nothing compared to what some of our ancestors, ancient and modern, devised for themselves.
Yom Kippur in Pictures , Israel Daily Picture. Thanks to the Library of Congress, we know what Yom Kippur looked like at the Kotel in 1904—and what it didn’t look like on a battlefield outside Metz during the Franco-Prussian War.
Mossad’s Mistake Mitch Ginsburg, Times of Israel. The attack that began the Yom Kippur War caught everyone in Israel, including Golda Meir, by surprise—everyone except the Mossad. A new look at Israel’s Pearl Harbor.
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?
How Orientalism Shaped Obama Lee Smith, Tablet. Blaming the recent attacks against U.S. targets on a cheap video reflects Edward Said’s argument that Europe subjugated Muslims by distorting perceptions of their culture.
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)
Rabbis for Slavery Howard B. Rock, Tablet. Today, New York’s Bnai Jeshurun Synagogue is a bastion of progressive politics. But on the eve of the Civil War, its rabbi was a champion of slavery. A cautionary tale.
A New Lease on Life Winnie Hu, New York Times. From the Bronx to New Orleans, struggling synagogues have come up with a new way to survive: They pay Jewish families to move into the neighborhood.