History
All These VowsFriday, October 7, 2011 by Lawrence Grossman | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
No one knows for sure how Kol Nidrei originated. It is by far the best-known Yom Kippur prayer, but in fact it is neither a prayer nor actually recited on Yom Kippur. Rabbis have never liked it.
The Myth of Mideast StabilityMonday, September 26, 2011 by Elliot Jager | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
The U.S. Ambassador to Israel recently told the International Conference on Economic Regional Cooperation in Tel Aviv that unless Israel and the Palestinians resume negotiations, "the lack of peace will decrease stability dangerously" in the Middle East.
The Wages of DurbanWednesday, September 21, 2011 by Arch Puddington | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
In the days just prior to the assault on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) was very much in the news, and for reasons that are altogether relevant to the mass murder that took place on September 11, 2001.
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.
Settling for StatehoodMonday, September 19, 2011 by Diana Muir Appelbaum | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
The 66th session of the United Nations General Assembly has just begun. Unless a diplomatic miracle happens, that body will soon be asked to approve what amounts to a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood. Palestinian spokesmen say they had no choice but to make their end run around serious negotiations with Israel.
Building JerusalemFriday, September 16, 2011 by Hadassah Levy | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
On the edge of Route 1 as that thoroughfare runs through eastern Jerusalem lies an Arab neighborhood by the name of Sheikh Jarrah. In one section of the neighborhood, an Israeli flag waves and Jews walk back and forth to the tomb of Simon the Just, who served as high priest in the Second Temple.
Spying for ZionTuesday, September 13, 2011 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Spying goes on everywhere, all the time, 24/7. But the way spying is treated—when it is discovered, when it is publicized, when spies are arrested, tried, and jailed—is highly variable, especially in the United States. The timing is almost never a matter of chance.
Enmity; or, Yiddish in AmericaMonday, September 12, 2011 by Allan Nadler | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
He was irascible, neurotic, self-obsessed, and socially inept; a brilliant misfit and misanthropic dilettante. Upon his death in July 2010, Harvey Pekar's few close friends insisted that the underground comic-book writer was also a gem in the rough, an out-of-date socialist naïf.
Israel, America, and the Lessons of 9/11Friday, September 9, 2011 by Abe Greenwald | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Two heads belonging to the same monster: This is the way a significant portion of the world saw America and Israel on September 11, 2001. On television that day, we watched people jump to their deaths to escape the flames engulfing the World Trade Center.
Mysteries of the MenorahThursday, September 8, 2011 by Meir Soloveichik | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
On the eve of Tisha b'Av, 2011, archeologists revealed artifacts newly unearthed from the great Jewish revolt against Rome (67–70 C.E.), including coins minted by the rebels and a stone incised with a sketch of the Temple menorah. But what is the menorah, and what does it symbolize?
Editors' Picks
Chasing Death Adam Kirsch, Jewish Review of Books. To some people, the thought of death is melancholy and enervating; to others, it is a provocation to seize the day. Claude Lanzmann, the director of Shoah, definitely falls into the second category.
A “Holocaust Complex”? Yair Sheleg, Haaretz. It is not only the Israeli Right that was traumatized by the Holocaust and thus views the world with apprehension. The Israeli peace camp also has a distorted view of the world due to that very same trauma.
Calibrating Darkness Henry Tylbor, Jewish Ideas Daily. In the Warsaw Ghetto, a youngster watches, hears, and mentally records the sights, sounds, and sensations of encroaching murder.
Hitler and Pharaoh Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe. The nexus of Passover and Yom Hashoah teaches a single lesson—that persecution of Jews was preceded by the persecutors' sense of victimhood.
A Myth for the Misbegotten Tom Gross, Tom Gross Media. Ten years after the Jenin massacre-that-wasn't, what has the press done to correct its fabrications, and to guard against further calumnies?
A Fatwa against Nuclear Arms? Tariq Alhomayed, Asharq Al-Awsat. After three decades of Iran's using religion, sectarianism, and even the Palestinian cause for its own ends, are we really expected to trust Tehran on the basis of . . . a religious fatwa?
The Titanic's Kosher Meal Marshall Weiss, JTA. The availability of kosher food on the Titanic sheds light on England's role as a transit point for Eastern European Jews on the way to America.
What Jews Should Know about the New Testament Amy-Jill Levine, Biblical Archaeology Review. By reading the New Testament in its historical contexts, Jews can better comprehend not only Christianity's polemics, but its point of departure from Judaism.
Abba Eban The Mike Wallace Interview. Arnold Toynbee, says Eban, "takes the massacre of millions of our men, women and children" and "compares it to the plight of Arab refugees alive, on their kindred soil, suffering certain anguish, but of course possessed of the supreme gift of life. This equation . . . is, I think, a distortion of any historic perspective." (Video; 1958)
Henry Kissinger The Mike Wallace Interview. "What is essential," Kissinger says, is to "have some image for the construction of the free world which is based on other motives than simply defending the world against Communism. We must make clear what we are for rather than what we are against." (Video; 1958)