Leading Figures
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.
Who is Uri Avnery, and Why Does He Matter?Friday, February 4, 2011 by Aryeh Tepper | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Jerusalem's decision in the early 1990's to admit Yasir Arafat and his fellow thugs into the heart of the land of Israel proved to be one of the country's major political blunders, paid for in the coin of a five-year terror war that traumatized Israeli society and transformed the dream of Israeli-Palestinian peace into an extended nightmare. How did it happen?
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?
Talmud: The Back StoryThursday, January 27, 2011 by Yehudah Mirsky | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
There is no getting away from the Babylonian Talmud. Love it, hate it, or both, this monumental work has been central to Jewish life for a millennium and more, managing time after time to find new readers and to summon new forms of reading.
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.
Is Israeli Democracy Finished?Tuesday, January 25, 2011 by Benjamin Kerstein | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
In a now somewhat notorious story published on January 11, Time magazine announced that Israeli politics was taking an ominous "rightward lurch," and concluded that the Middle East's only democracy is on the slippery slope toward something like . . . fascism.
A Zionist Who’s WhoThursday, January 20, 2011 by Yehudah Mirsky | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
The state of Israel, like the Zionist movement in all its forms—political, cultural, artistic, religious—was an astounding collective creation. The famous names are known, as are the slightly less famous. But what about all the others?
Press Freedom, Israeli-StyleTuesday, January 11, 2011 by Elliot Jager | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
If, as Walter Lippmann wrote, the newspaper is the bible of democracy, the land of the Bible is exceptionally well endowed with that precious commodity.
Comeback Kids?Thursday, December 30, 2010 by Elliot Jager | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Israeli elections are far off. But two familiar figures, only recently down and out, have re-emerged at opposite ends of the political spectrum, setting journalists and veteran observers to wonder about the future shape of things.
Christopher Hitchens’s Jewish ProblemMonday, December 13, 2010 by Benjamin Kerstein | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
It has been an open secret for years that the celebrated columnist and author Christopher Hitchens has a problem with the Jews. No one much likes to talk about it, and for various reasons his journalistic peers have remained silent on the subject. But it is nonetheless the case.
Editors' Picks
The Genesis of Exodus Martin Kramer, Sandbox. Where did "historian" Rashid Khalidi come up with the idea that Leon Uris' bestselling novel was commissioned by a public relations professional on behalf of Israel?
Just Business Aaron David Miller, Foreign Policy. While the prisoner exchange between Hamas and Israel shows that these two parties can make deals together, it has no bearing on the region's prospects for peace.
Dreyfus, My Child Itzik Gottesman, Yiddish Song of the Week. In a rare Yiddish song, Captain Alfred Dreyfus is transformed into a child in the crib, representing the entire suffering Jewish people. (With audio)
Small Victory Anshel Pfeffer, Haaretz. By ostentatiously listing himself as "without religion," the novelist Yoram Kaniuk has confirmed the failure of secular Israelis to provide an alternative vision of Judaism.
The Mind of Trilling Gertrude Himmelfarb, New Criterion. It was Lionel Trilling's "moral imagination" that enabled him to venture into areas normally foreign to literary critics—including Jewish philosophy.
The Audacity of Faith Yehudah Mirsky, Jewish Review of Books. A biography of Yehuda Amital reveals a daringly exuberant figure whose journey led from a Nazi labor camp to a unique and controversial place in Israeli religious and political life.
Plato and the Talmud Alan Avery-Peck, Review of Biblical Literature. Philosophically, "Athens" and "Jerusalem" represent wholly incompatible viewpoints on the truth. Not so, argues a new book. (PDF)
Nothing New in Bedlam Janet Tassel, Right Truth. In a brilliant 1989 essay, Jeane Kirkpatrick foresaw the long march through the UN that has led to the bid for Palestinian statehood.
How Jewish Should Brandeis Be? Linda K. Wertheimer, Forward. To its new president, the Massachusetts university is "both an open nonsectarian institution and a school that has deep roots in the Jewish community." What does this mean in practice?
Toward a Jewish Humanism Shai Held, Haaretz. The moral philosophy embraced by a religious-Zionist leader in the mid-20th century is in urgent need of revival.