Jewish Ideas Daily has been succeeded and re-launched as Mosaic. Read more...

People & Places


Anti-Semitism and Man at Yale Anti-Semitism and Man at Yale
Monday, June 13, 2011 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

The modern university is no longer made up simply of departments and regular professors teaching students. Ancillary centers, programs, and initiatives proliferate, undertaking research on every conceivable topic. The fates of such entities rarely make the New York Post. But anti-Semitism is not a normal subject.
To Ransom or Not to Ransom? To Ransom or Not to Ransom?
Friday, June 10, 2011 by Aryeh Tepper | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

The PLO's first attack on Israel came when Mahmoud Hijazi and five other terrorists attempted to bomb a water-pump station in southern Israel. Once captured, Hijazi received the second death sentence ever handed down in Israel. Though his sentence was later overturned, the story was far from over.
Before the Law Before the Law
Tuesday, June 7, 2011 by Suzanne Last Stone and Alan M. Dershowitz | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

The holiday of Shavuot, which falls this year on June 8 and 9, commemorates the giving of the Law. In video interviews conducted by the Israeli media agency Leadel, the prominent legal scholars Suzanne Last Stone and Alan M. Dershowitz explain the differences between Jewish law and Western law, and how their own interest in the former has informed their careers in the latter. —The Editors
The Forgotten Festival The Forgotten Festival
Monday, June 6, 2011 by Michael Carasik | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

The holiday of Shavuot, which begins this year on Tuesday evening, is the orphan among Jewish holidays; it is the forgotten festival. Let me count the ways.
We Were the Future We Were the Future
Thursday, June 2, 2011 by Yehudah Mirsky | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Few uniquely Israeli institutions have ever held the world's imagination like the kibbutz: a radical Jewish experiment in communal living, social justice, economic egalitarianism, and the reorganization of family life. Indeed, perhaps the most radical innovation of all was the "children's house" (beit y'ladim).
The Anthropology of AIPAC The Anthropology of AIPAC
Tuesday, May 31, 2011 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Few events in contemporary American Jewish life generate as much passion as the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), held in Washington this year on May 22-24. The best way to view the over 10,000 conference participants may be in terms of a tribe or small society.
Remember the Farhud Remember the Farhud
Monday, May 30, 2011 by Aryeh Tepper | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

The end of 2,500 years of Jewish life in Iraq began during two days in June 1941. For 30 terrifying hours, mobs of marauding Iraqi Arabs, soldiers and civilians alike, killed 137 Jews and injured thousands more, pillaged scores of homes, and destroyed more than 600 Jewish-owned businesses.
American Orthodoxy and Its Discontents American Orthodoxy and Its Discontents
Friday, May 27, 2011 by Lawrence Grossman | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

A "case study in institutional decay": that description of Orthodox Judaism in America was offered in 1955 by the late sociologist Marshall Sklare. It has long since entered the gallery of scholarly misjudgments, acknowledged as such by Sklare when events turned out to belie his assessment.
The Russian Wave The Russian Wave
Thursday, May 26, 2011 by Yehudah Mirsky | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, some one million Jews have come to Israel from the former Soviet Union (FSU), enlarging the country's population by 25 percent and forming the largest concentration in the world of Russian Jews.  They have left their mark in almost every walk of life. And yet, as a group, they are still something of a mystery.
No Springtime for Palestinians? No Springtime for Palestinians?
Wednesday, May 25, 2011 by Sol Stern | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

In his May 19 speech celebrating the Arab Spring, President Obama expressed enthusiasm for the "movements for change" that have been unseating tyrants previously supported or tolerated by the United States. In language echoing that of his despised rival George W. Bush, he adopted as his own the idea of promoting democracy in the Middle East.
Page 23 of 39« First...10...2122232425...30...Last »
Editors' Picks
Building Bauhaus Elizabeth Zach, New York Times. As the Bauhaus school of architecture fell afoul of Nazi aesthetic diktats, its adherents were left looking for new pastures in which to build—and many found them in Mandate Palestine.
Invoking Auschwitz David Landau, Haaretz. Although the Right has made insensitive Holocaust comparisons in the past, the Left must realize that another attempted genocide of the Jews is a real possibility.
Syrian Dreams Avigdor Lieberman, Jerusalem Post. Although many expect Syria to degenerate into radicalization if Assad falls, Israel's minister of foreign affairs refuses to give up hope that Syria's middle class could build a liberal democracy.
Ghost Train Benjamin Ivry, Forward. Over seventy years after the fact, and in spite of pressure from American legislators, the French national rail company still refuses to admit its role in transporting Jews to concentration camps.
Under African Skies Bernard Starr, Huffington Post. When a teenage member of a Pentecostal church in Cameroon decided to convert to Judaism, he was at a loss as to how to proceed, having never met a single Jew or heard of any in the country.
Nesting Dolls Alina Dain Sharon, Jewish Journal. Twenty years after their Russian exodus, the lives of Jews who emigrated to the U.S., Israel, and Germany differ markedly from those who stayed in Russia.
Proxy War Jonathan Schanzer, Foreign Policy. Although Israelis have come to expect rocket attacks from Gaza, this time the perpetrators are not Hamas agents but Iranian proxies. And however the conflict develops, Tehran will come out on top.
Defending Defense Mitch Ginsburg, Times of Israel. When Amir Peretz commissioned a missile defense system five years ago, he faced blanket opposition from the IDF, who saw attack as the best form of defense. But none doubt Iron Dome now.
The Islamic World's Quiet Revolution Nicholas Eberstadt, Foreign Policy. The average number of children born to women has fallen dramatically across the Middle East, falsifying the thesis that fertility always correlates with economic development.
Jews Rush In Antonio Di Gesu, JTA. A year after Japan's deadly tsunami, the community has not forgotten the almost instantaneous global Jewish response to the disaster.