History
Sleepless on ShavuotThursday, May 24, 2012 by Moshe Sokolow | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Two practices long associated with Shavuot, the "time of the revelation of the Law" (z'man matan Torateinu), are the enrolling of children in religious school and the marathon all-night study vigil (tikkun leyl Shavuot).
(F)rum RunnersWednesday, May 23, 2012 by Lawrence J. Epstein | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Prohibition is perennially making a comeback, at least in the media; and this is one of those revival times. It began with the HBO TV series Boardwalk Empire, now in its second season, set in Prohibition-era Atlantic City and priding itself on its historical accuracy.
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.
Faces and HandsFriday, May 18, 2012 by William Meyers | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Mindla Diament was a beautiful woman. We know that from the portrait her older sister Julia Pirotte took of her in Marseille in 1942. In Julia's picture Mindla's face emerges from darkness, classically Semitic, with large eyes, a full mouth, slender neck, and imposing spiritual depth.
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.
Either/OrthodoxyTuesday, May 15, 2012 by Lawrence Grossman | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Belying the regimented connotation of the word "orthodox," Orthodox Judaism is by far the most diverse stream of Judaism, encompassing such incompatible types as rationalists and mystics, West Bank settlers and peaceniks, college professors and obscurantists, feminists and male chauvinists.
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.
Our Zoroastrian MomentMonday, May 7, 2012 by Shai Secunda | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
The great contemporary scholar of religion Jonathan Z. Smith once remarked that the omnipresent substructure of human thought lies in the human capacity to make comparisons. In ancient Sumer, scribes crafted intricate similes.
Find, Fix, FinishTuesday, May 1, 2012 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
What is the threat? Al-Qaeda? "Terrorism"? "Violent religious extremism"? Israeli analysts call it "global jihad," but U.S. leadership has carefully circumscribed it as "al-Qaeda" or, even more narrowly, personified it as Osama bin Laden and his minions, hijackers of planes and Islam.
Going the DistanceFriday, April 27, 2012 by Yehudah Mirsky | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Israel is a nation-state. In contrast, Diaspora Jewry—in particular, American Jewry—is a network of voluntary communities, constituting not just different structures but different life-worlds. While it is usually taken for granted that nation-states and their respective diasporas will grow apart, with Jews the issue is hotly debated.
Editors' Picks
Survival in Buchenwald Brad Rothschild, Times of Israel. When the SS came looking for Jews on Kinderblock 66, Antonin Kalina told them there were no more. (He had listed them as Christians . . .)
'Round Olympic Village Ivor Davis, Jewish Chronicle. “We slept in our back-garden bomb shelter . . . we were weaned on ration books, powdered eggs, and cod-liver oil”: Not long ago, now-chic East London was a hub of immigrant Jewish life.
Pius the Pious? , Washington Post. Under pressure from the Vatican, Yad Vashem now presents Pope Pius XII’s silence during the Holocaust as an attempt to protect the Church—and, by extension, the Jews.
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.
A Forgotten Hero Brad Hart, American Revolution Blog. Francis Salvador is remembered only as the first Jew to be killed in the Revolutionary War. But as a wealthy English Jew who became a patriotic American democrat, he epitomized the American dream.
The Jewish Pioneers Pamela R. Winnick, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. While Jews were tolerated in the New World, they were hardly made welcome by the Protestant majority—until they played a military and, more importantly, a financial role in the Revolution.
Soviet Spring Claire Berlinski, Tablet. A new book claims that Soviet interference in the Middle East has had far greater impact than is generally acknowledged—stretching to the current collapse of its former client states.
A People of One Book Walter Arnstein, H-Net. Timothy Larsen aims to demonstrate the immense religiosity of Victorian England—but, if anything, he understates the case.
Confessions of a Narcissist David Rieff, Nation. Claude Lanzmann's memoir is a self-indulgent failure. But Shoah is a work of genius, and that does indeed justify a life.
Return to Vienna Lisa Silverman, H-Net. Jews who grew up in cosmopolitan pre-war Vienna came back after the war to find themselves strangers at home. Yet Austria's capital still fascinates Jewish writers.