October 7 and the Gaza War

Not Rain

Shai Secunda

“In shul, the Torah reader suddenly picks up his ringing cellphone, nodding as he is told to be ready within half an hour. Something inexplicable, tremendous, and terrifying is taking place. Not rain; war.”

Pogroms, Politics, and the Association for Jewish Studies

Daniel B. Schwartz

“Only the word horrific seemed apt; the rest of the statement managed the rare feat of being both drab and discordant.”

Kibbutz Be’eri, Chaos, and Creation

Cole S. Aronson

“Be’eri was not so much assaulted as disemboweled. After the massacre there were corpses everywhere—what is left now is the stuff of lives ripped out.”

Welcome to the New Campus Normal: A Dispatch from Ohio State

Yoshua G. B. Tolle

“They found the graffiti in a stairwell. Protect Jewish Lives, only the words were crossed out by a red X.” Yoshua G. B. Tolle reports on Jewish campus life amid rising antisemitism.

Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef and the Halakhot of Hostages

Elli Fischer

When Israeli citizens were taken hostage in Entebbe in 1976, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef was asked if hostages could be exchanged for terrorists. In a four-part series, Elli Fischer explores what his towering responsum teaches us about the current moment. Read Parts one, two, three, and four.

Then and Now: Two Wars

Allan Arkush

Allan Arkush spent the Yom Kippur War delivering medical supplies in Israel. Fifty years later, he finds uncanny comparisons between the current war and World War I.

What Goes Into Survival: A Report from the Washington Rally

Jesse Tisch

People came by the hundreds of thousands, schlepping by train, chartered bus, overnight flight. Students raised money from relatives. Federations funded last-minute airfare. It was a rally for people who don’t attend rallies.

Sisters of Iron and Coders in Black Hats: Haredi Integration and the War Against Hamas

Batsheva Neuer

As Haredi men tie tzitzit for the IDF, and Haredi women volunteer to help soldiers, does their response to October 7th mark a turning point of integration?

Wars and Peace: Memoirs of a Conflict

Edieal J . Pinker

Decades ago, Israelis would stroll peacefully through Gaza on shopping trips. How did a fragile peace evolve into terrifying war?

Letter from Neukölln, Berlin

Rebecca BladyandJeremy Borovitz

“Although the warning to hide invoked memories from Berlin in its darkest days, we refused to be afraid of who we are.”

Ruby Sees Red

Shai SecundaandRuby Namdar

“I’m still trying to wake up from this nightmare. I walk in the streets. I see parents with babies. I can’t look. I walk in Riverside Park, I see an older man hugging his granddaughter, and I almost start crying. We have been forced back into Jewish history, into the bloody raw part of Jewish history.”