History
The Tribes SpeakWednesday, February 16, 2011 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Unrest is spreading in the Middle East, but everywhere it displays a unique character. Take Jordan. In an unprecedented public letter to King Abdullah II, thirty-six of the country's tribal leaders have warned that "Jordan will sooner or later be the target of an uprising similar to the ones in Tunisia and Egypt."
The New York Times Revises the Peace ProcessMonday, February 14, 2011 by Sol Stern | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
"The Peace Plan that Almost Was and Still Could Be": blazoned over the entire cover of the February 13 New York Times Magazine, the sensation-seeking headline comes accompanied by a photograph from the back of former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, each with his arm around the other.
Skeletons in the Closet of HasidismFriday, February 11, 2011 by Lawrence Grossman | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Popular demands for transparency in our institutions and the availability of technological means to achieve it have made it hard to keep secrets. This has affected the conduct not only of government and business but also of religion.
The Pharaoh’s General, and Mubarak’sMonday, February 7, 2011 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
The general was a commoner. He rose through the ranks as a career soldier, attracting attention for his prowess and dedication. Becoming a soldier-diplomat, he fought Egypt's battles, negotiated with troublesome neighbors, and served several kings in succession.
Calling David Ben-GurionThursday, February 3, 2011 by Yehudah Mirsky | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Times like these tend to remind us what a rare thing is great statesmanship. How many leaders are capable of wedding long-term vision with the nuts and bolts of politics and institutions, let alone an understanding of great historical forces with the will to shape them and the wisdom to know the will's limits?
Cyrus, Ahmadinejad, and the Politics of PurimTuesday, February 1, 2011 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Anyone who deplores the politicization of the past should have been apoplectic in September 2010 at the sight of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad receiving the loan of the "Cyrus Cylinder" from officials of the British Museum.
Arab StirringsFriday, January 28, 2011 by Elliot Jager | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
On January 14, the strongman of Tunisia, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, fled in panic to Saudi Arabia after the astonishingly spontaneous, Facebook-driven crumbling of his corrupt regime.
The Seed of IsraelWednesday, January 26, 2011 by Aryeh Tepper | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Until modern times, the boundaries of Jewish identity were cut and dried. If you were born to a Jewish mother, or if you were a convert according to Jewish religious law (halakhah), you were Jewish. If not, you weren't.
The Iraqi Jewish ArchiveMonday, January 24, 2011 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
To whom do antiquities belong? For Jews, the question took on flesh in 2003 in the flooded basement of a building belonging to the Iraqi secret police.
The Conscience of a Jewish ConservativeFriday, January 21, 2011 by Ruth R. Wisse | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
A Jewish thinker is normally someone devoted to the study and interpretation of Jewish texts, Jewish history, Jewish issues, Jewish ideas. The late Irving Kristol (1920–2009) was, for the most part, something else: a consummate American intellectual.
Editors' Picks
Nazi Family Values David Jacobs, Hoover Digest. The photo albums of Hitler's associates—the extended Nazi family, as it were—were of little or no interest to researchers immediately after World War II. But historians are taking a second look.
Whitewashing Black-Jewish History Sivan Zakai, jweekly. Both African-Americans and Jews journeyed from slavery to redemption, ultimately united as allies in the civil rights era. It makes for an appropriate and inspiring school lesson. But is it good history?
Mincing Words Philologos, Forward. The Yiddish expression makhn ash un blote—"to make ashes and mud" or "to make mincemeat" of someone—exemplifies the influence of biblical idiom on Yiddish phraseology.
Fearful Asymmetry Andrew Roberts, Tablet. One woman is a convicted al-Qaeda terrorist. The other is a renegade crusader for women's rights. An American journalist explicitly seeks to draw a parallel between the two.
Vatican't Giulio Meotti, Ynet. Israel's decision to cede some sovereignty over the "Hall of the Last Supper" to the Catholic Church will only embolden the Vatican's campaign to appropriate Jewish Jerusalem.
Disjecta Membra Benjamin Balint, Los Angeles Review of Books. Not for nothing was the Cairo Genizah called "the Living Sea Scrolls": its discoverers revolutionized the study of Mediterranean Jewish life at the very moment that it was drawing to a close.
Creating a Monster Jonathan Kirsch, Jewish Journal. On the weak-chinned, bespectacled, clumsy young man who ambitiously reinvented himself as . . . Heinrich Himmler.
Independent is the New Democrat Ilana Ostrin, American Prospect. Jewish affiliation with the Democratic Party has dropped by ten percent since 2009. This won't hurt President Obama—but may affect other electoral races in 2012.
Reading the Netanyahu Tea Leaves Zvika Krieger, Atlantic. Does the collapse of recent Israeli-Palestinian exploratory talks mask an increased flexibility in the Prime Minister's position on Israeli control of the Jordan Valley? The Atlantic is hopeful.
Auster and Erdogan on Human Rights in Turkey Dave Itzkoff, New York Times. The Turkish Prime Minister called the novelist ignorant for refusing to visit Turkey because of all those journalists in Turkish jails. Auster has delivered quite an answer.