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People & Places


Mr. Abbas, Tear Down This Wall! Mr. Abbas, Tear Down This Wall!
Tuesday, September 28, 2010 by Sol Stern | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

While the world's headlines focus with exaggerated alarm on Israel's lifting of its ten-month building freeze within Jewish West Bank settlements, an issue of far greater moment for the prospects of peace in the Middle East goes determinedly unaddressed. This is the matter of the "right of return" of Palestinian refugees—a subject on which the Obama administration, a fierce promoter of the building freeze, has been strikingly silent.
Rebranding Poland Rebranding Poland
Monday, September 27, 2010 by Elliot Jager | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

According to the organizers of a recent Jerusalem conference marking the 20th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Israel and Poland, the time has come for Jews to recognize the plain truth: Poland is Israel's best friend in the European Union. Moreover, they add, it is time to take a more nuanced view of Polish Jewish history altogether, to focus less single-mindedly on the killing fields implanted on Polish soil by Nazi Germany and more broadly on the preceding 1,000 years of Jewish civilization.
The Romance of Gush Etzion The Romance of Gush Etzion
Friday, September 3, 2010 by Aryeh Tepper | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

The modern return of the Jewish people to their homeland succeeded thanks to the extraordinary tenacity of pioneering individuals who, in a dangerous environment, created new communities from scratch. One such community, or rather series of communities, is the Etzion district—in Hebrew, Gush Etzion—located along the ancient mountain route between Jerusalem and Hebron. The first three communities built by Jewish settlers were completely destroyed by Arabs. The fourth still stands today.
It Sounds Better in Amharic It Sounds Better in Amharic
Thursday, August 26, 2010 by Aryeh Tepper | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

In his one-man play, It Sounds Better in Amharic, the Ethiopian-born Israeli actor Yossi Vassa humorously contrasts life in the old world and the new, mulling over the differences between traditional and modern ways of dating and the respective virtues of traveling by donkey or Lamborghini. He also narrates his family's 400-mile journey from Ethiopia to Sudan—from where, in 1984, the Israeli air force flew 8,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel. Vassa's family covered the 400 miles on foot, in three months. "Not to brag," he comments, "but it took the children of Israel 40 years."
Digging King Herod Digging King Herod
Friday, August 20, 2010 by Aryeh Tepper | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

King Herod was a Jew of doubtful origin who ruled Israel in the years 40-4 B.C.E. During this same period, the Roman republic was being replaced by the Roman Empire with its vast expansionist aims. Relying on Roman support for his power, Herod was, in effect, Israel's little Roman emperor. And he played the part, bringing administrative order and economic prosperity to the country and creating hugely ambitious architectural projects. In the Roman way, he was also cruel, paranoid, and thorough, killing his wife, three sons, and an assortment of other relatives and confidants.
Limited Partnership Limited Partnership
Monday, August 16, 2010 by Elliot Jager | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Celebrating its Independence Day on August 15, the nation of India marked 63 years since the end of British rule in the sub-continent. In light of the two countries' more or less contemporaneous struggle for self-determination in the immediate aftermath of World War II, one might have thought that India would establish close ties with the newly born state of Israel straightaway. It did not happen.
Rootless Cosmopolitan(s) Rootless Cosmopolitan(s)
Tuesday, August 10, 2010 by Sam Munson | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

The search for the Next Big Thing is as endemic in the American literary world as in politics and the clothing industry. When it comes to writers, the itch tends to express itself through the excited serial discovery of identifiably new or neglected "voices," preferably young and often of the ethnic or sexual variety: African-American, or second-wave feminist, or, recently, immigrant Russian-Jewish. Members of this last category are taken to include the short-story writer Lara Vapnyar, the music critic Alex Halberstadt, the literary anthologist Boris Fishman, and Keith Gessen, a founder of the cultural journal n+1 and sometime novelist. Whether...
The Stranger Among You The Stranger Among You
Monday, August 9, 2010 by Yehudah Mirsky | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Last week the Israeli cabinet granted status to 800 children of guest workers while, pending appeal, ordering the deportation of 400 others. In the ensuing public reaction, some thought the measure too severe, others too generous. No surprise there: as Western Europeans and Americans well know, the problem of migrant labor is by no means unique to Israel. But each situation has arisen out of specific constellations of history, policy, and circumstance—and, in Israel, an added dimension is the complex relationship among the longstanding societal values of work, solidarity, and Zionism.
The New Shimon Peres The New Shimon Peres
Thursday, August 5, 2010 by Elliot Jager | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Marking his eighty-seventh birthday this week, Israel's president flew to Cairo for a two-hour meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, captured headlines in Britain for his frank talk about British attitudes toward Jews and Zionism, visited bereaved military families, and welcomed new North American immigrants at Ben-Gurion airport. Perceived not so long ago as among Israel's most polarizing and untrustworthy figures, Shimon Peres nowadays enjoys unprecedented status. A politician who once mercilessly undermined prime ministers Yitzhak Shamir and Yitzhak Rabin stands loyally behind Benjamin Netanyahu while speaking publicly as an above-the-fray statesman.
The Kook Perplex The Kook Perplex
Wednesday, August 4, 2010 by Yehudah Mirsky | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

In late May, a file began to circulate on the Internet of a lengthy and hitherto-unknown work by Abraham Isaac Kook (1865-1935), one of the greatest and most consequential of modern Jewish thinkers. Though he died 75 years ago, Kook's provocative ideas still play a pivotal role in contemporary Israeli political and religious debates, and the long-playing controversies surrounding his literary estate reflect something of the aura of his mystical personality and teachings. This latest revelation, and the round of polemics spurred by it, illustrate some enduringly high-voltage issues within Jewish life today.
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Editors' Picks
Blurring the Issue Hadassah Levy, Torah Musings. Blurring or removing photographs of women might be understandable in the ultra-Orthodox world, but it should have no place in Modern Orthodoxy.
Assad in the Balance Daniel Freedman, Forbes. Of all Israel's neighbors, Syria has traditionally been the most hostile. But now that the Arab League has deserted him, President Assad might be open to rapprochement with Israel and the West.
A Conspiracy Against Catholicism? Piers Paul Read, Telegraph. When Captain Alfred Dreyfus was unjustly convicted of espionage, many of those who rallied to his defense were not philo-Semites but militant atheists, bent on destroying his Catholic opponents.
Reb Shlomo, Superstar Mary Jane Fine, Forward. If Fiddler on the Roof is about tradition, a new musical about Shlomo Carlebach is about breaking with tradition—even if that means, as in Carlebach's case, breaking one's father's heart.
Germany's Jewish Voice Ofer Aderet, Haaretz. With an influx of immigrants from Russia and Israel, Germany's Jewish community is the fastest growing in the world. Now a new quarterly heralds the rebirth of Jewish-German culture.
Our Ethiopian Brothers Elad Uzan, Jerusalem Post. Why haven't Israelis come to the aid of Ethiopian Jews, as they have for African non-Jews?
"My Name is Daniel Pearl" Giulio Meotti, Ynet. The barbarous murder of this American Jew, ten years ago this week, didn't awaken global public opinion to the most significant truth of our times: Today, every Jew in the world is on the frontlines of war.
Will Israel Attack Iran? Ronen Bergman, New York Times. Can Israel severely damage Iran's nuclear sites? Would a strike have international legitimacy? Is this the point of last resort? For the first time, at least some of Israel's leaders believe that the response to all of these questions is yes.
How Many Came Out of Egypt? Shlomo Karni, Torah Musings. David Ben-Gurion did the math.
Rules for Revisionists Jonathan S. Tobin, Contentions. By brandishing the name of Saul Alinsky, does Newt Gingrich intend to send out anti-Semitic dog whistles to the Right? Nonsense.