Modern Times
The Unseen ShieldTuesday, April 3, 2012 by Elliot Jager | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
The news report hardly makes an impression on most Israelis: another West Bank checkpoint search, another discovery of explosives and weapons, and the familiar finale: "The suspect was taken in for questioning by the Shin Bet."
Is Football Treyf?Friday, March 30, 2012 by Micah Stein | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
The Israeli Football League—American football, not soccer—is a curiosity. For starters, it's popular: While the sport has mostly flopped overseas, the IFL has an invested fan base and committed, reasonably talented players.
Scholarship and Anti-Semitism at YaleMonday, March 26, 2012 by Ben Cohen | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Almost a year has passed since Yale University shuttered the five-year-old Yale Interdisciplinary Initiative for the Study of Anti-Semitism, known by the unwieldy acronym "YIISA," and replaced it with the Yale Program for the Study of Anti-Semitism, or "YPSA."
Ardor, or ArchitectureFriday, March 23, 2012 | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
A look inside three of the twentieth century's most interesting careers in architecture: the world-renowned Israeli Moshe Safdie, on the verge of shutting down the office he opened in Jerusalem in 1970; the Polish-born, polarizing Daniel Libeskind, now at work on rebuilding New York's World Trade Center; and the mythic postwar master Louis Kahn.
Varieties of Post-Religious ExperienceWednesday, March 21, 2012 by Yehudah Mirsky | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Israel is, on top of everything else, a gigantic open-air laboratory for experiments in Judaism and Jewish identity, mixing and matching old and new forms, deliberately and on the fly. One of the more interesting recent specimens is Religiozionisticus Postreligious.
Heschel in Yiddish and HebrewWednesday, March 14, 2012 by Yehudah Mirsky | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Standing at Sinai, "All the people were seeing the thunder" (Exodus 20:15), seeing the sounds. The word "revelation" would be somewhat misleading, since nothing was unveiled: The mountain was wreathed in cloud and smoke.
The Butcher and the SurgeonMonday, March 12, 2012 by Micah D. Halpern | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
They call Bashar al-Assad "son of the butcher," but he is merely a butcher twice removed. The original butcher of Syria was Abul Abbas al-Saffah, the last appellation meaning "shedder of blood."
Old-New LeonardFriday, March 9, 2012 by Peodair Leihy | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
After 60 years of publishing and recording, seventysomething Leonard Cohen has something else to say; and, lo and behold, the "Camp"—the Bergen-Belsen of the remembered newsreels of his childhood—comes up. He also gets the "Eye"—Jerusalem's Eye of the Needle—in there, a Jewish metaphor from the Talmud and the New Testament.
Hitting the JackpotThursday, March 8, 2012 by Micah Stein | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Who doesn't like Purim? Besides the costumes and candy, the story itself has all the politics, sex, and violence of a juicy HBO series. In case you missed it: "Haman the son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the enemy of all the Jews, had plotted to destroy the Jews, and had cast a pur—that is, a lottery—with intent to crush and exterminate them."
Cyrus, Ahmadinejad, and the Politics of PurimWednesday, March 7, 2012 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
At this week's pre-Purim meeting in Washington between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu to discuss Iran's nuclear threat to Israel, Netanyahu gave Obama a present: the book (or m'gilah, scroll) of Esther, which tells how the Jewish heroine foiled Haman's plot to kill the Jews of ancient Persia.
Editors' Picks
Trippingly on the Tongue Natasha Mozgovaya, Haaretz. In one day, Obama aroused public ire by referring both to "Polish death camps" and to his superior knowledge of Judaism. He might tackle shmirat halashon as his next area of Jewish study.
A Life in Rock, and Writing Greil Marcus, Los Angeles Review of Books. "I told my wife about [a conversation with the editor of Rolling Stone] in great detail. And Jenny said, ‘Greil, you've just been fired.' I said, ‘I have?!?'" (20,000-word interview by Simon Reynolds; here, part II, part III, and part IV)
Britain's Post-War Pogrom Daniel Trilling, New Statesman. The deaths of two British soldiers at the hands of the Irgun in 1947 sparked the most widespread violence against Jews ever in the UK. But no sooner did it happen than it was forgotten.
Jews of Yemen, Get Out! Lyn Julius, Times of Israel. The few dozen Jews who remain in Yemen—many incentivized against aliyah by the Satmar movement—insist that Jewish life is good in Tzanaa despite a death toll attesting to the contrary.
The Fugees' Score Jonathan Schanzer, Foreign Policy. A new congressional bill could slash the number of Palestinian refugees—but neither the UNRWA nor its beneficiaries is likely to accept this change of status without a fight.
Odyssey in Odessa Paul Berger, Forward. A century ago, Odessa's rambunctious ghetto rivaled New York's Lower East Side as a melting pot. Now? "If you want the real Moldavanka you must go to Brooklyn."
Morality, Not Theology Meir Soloveichik, Weekly Standard. Mormons trying to talk across doctrinal divides to evangelical Christians can learn from Joseph Soloveitchik's advice on how Jews should—and should not—discuss their faith with Christians.
Making "Unofficial" Jews Official Dianna Cahn, Times of Israel. Bulgaria's fast-track conversions for Jews whose identity has been erased under Communism might not meet the standards of the Israeli chief rabbinate—but the alternative is to lose them altogether.
My Heart is in the East (of Europe) Timothy Snyder, Wall Street Journal. Not many Ashkenazi Jews are nostalgic for life in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth—though for centuries, Poland claimed the most vibrant Jewish community in the world.
A Kaddish for Sholem Aleichem Kara A. Kaufman, Moment. How did the Yiddish author want his descendants to spend his yahrzeit? They should "select one of my stories, one of the really merry ones, and read it aloud in whatever language they understand best."