Zionist Thought
How the Likud Came to BeFriday, April 22, 2011 by Elliot Jager | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Benjamin Netanyahu no doubt took comfort from a recent survey showing that 76 percent of Likud members opposed annexing all of Judea and Samaria. Yet he would also have known that 10,000 party recruits had been newly signed up by uncompromising settler leaders. How to keep the Likud ("Union") together and in the center of Israel's political mainstream?
Messianic TemptationsThursday, April 7, 2011 by Yehudah Mirsky | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
The downfall of Moshe Katsav, the former president of Israel recently convicted and sentenced on a rape charge, is a many-sided episode—involving his crimes, the media circus around the judicial proceedings against him, and the private and public meanings of his disgrace.
Halakhah for AmericansFriday, March 18, 2011 by Elli Fischer | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Asked in a 1975 New York Times interview how he had acquired his standing as America's most trusted authority in Jewish religious law (halakhah), Rabbi Moshe Feinstein (1895-1986) replied: ''If people see that one answer is good and another answer is good, gradually you will be accepted."
The Peace Plan Israel NeedsTuesday, March 15, 2011 by Elliot Jager | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Israel's wobbly friends in Europe and the U.S. are renewing their pressure on Jerusalem to "do something" about the "unsustainable" stalemate in the "peace process." As German Chancellor Angela Merkel scolded Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: "You haven't made a single step to advance peace."
The Old Young GuardMonday, March 7, 2011 by Aryeh Tepper | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
One of the most significant movements of Jewish renewal in the 20th century was Hashomer Hatzair: the Young Guard. Founded as a youth group in Vienna in 1916, the movement set itself in opposition to what it regarded as the emaciated character of Jewish life.
J Street’s Last Hurrah?Tuesday, March 1, 2011 by Elliot Jager | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
In a little over three years, a liberal lobby calling itself "passionately and unapologetically pro-Israel" appears to have either supplanted or co-opted other likeminded groups on the Jewish Left—among them, Americans for Peace Now, the Israel Policy Forum, and the New Israel Fund.
Military Virtue, and VirtueMonday, February 28, 2011 by Aryeh Tepper | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
On February 14, Benny Gantz was appointed the twentieth chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). It wasn't supposed to be that way. Yoav Galant, a decorated soldier and former head of the IDF's southern command, had been named to the position at the end of 2010.
The Riddle of the SatmarThursday, February 17, 2011 by Allan Nadler | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
A prospect terrifying to secular Israelis and Zionists worldwide has been the rapid growth of the Jewish state's ultra-Orthodox (haredi) community. Given the stranglehold of haredi political parties on recent coalition governments, and the encroachments by non-Zionist haredi clerics upon Israel's chief rabbinate, once religiously moderate and firmly Zionist, the fear is not entirely irrational.
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?
Editors' Picks
Mighty Jacobson Shana Rosenblatt Mauer, Haaretz. However darkly comic and compelling, the thick Manchester jargon and Yiddishisms of Howard Jacobson's Mighty Walzer may prove prohibitive for American readers.
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.
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.
Bibi's Brain Allison Hoffman, Tablet. Netanyahu's senior adviser, an American Jew, has done more to shape Israel's relationships in recent years than any man aside from the prime minister himself.
A Living, Humming Instrument Allan Nadler, Forward.
The great poet of cultural Zionism, Hayim Nahman Bialik (1873–1934), also gave voice to the predicament of loving religious Judaism while violating its norms.
Palin's Pals Benyamin Korn, JTA. In conservative "new media," an ethnically diverse and intellectually powerful vehicle for pro-American and pro-Israel voices, Jews have become increasingly prominent.
Message from the Emperor Mark Harman, New York Review of Books. A vignette by Franz Kafka, first published in a Prague Zionist journal in 1919, tells a Chinese tale as an allegory of messianic longings.
God's Army? Arieh O'Sullivan, Media Line. Ever since religious Jews began filling leadership positions in the IDF, some have been worrying about potential disloyalty to the state—so far, without reason.
For Israelis, a Two-Day Weekend? William Kolbrener, Washington Post. In addition to synchronizing Israeli businesses with the world's markets, an American-style Sunday might allow for a welcome catching of the collective breath.
Who is the Wicked Child? Jeffrey Goldberg, Atlantic. Responding to an essay by a Village Voice editor on the loss of her Zionist "innocence."