Letters, Spring 2013
Letters from Henry Kissinger and other readers.
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and the Halakhot of Hostages: Part II
When Israeli citizens were taken hostage in Entebbe in 1976, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef was asked if hostages could be exchanged for terrorists. What can his towering responsum teach us about the current moment?
Wars and Peace: Memoirs of a Conflict
Decades ago, Israelis would stroll peacefully through Gaza on shopping trips. How did a fragile peace evolve into terrifying war?
Sisters of Iron and Coders in Black Hats: Haredi Integration and the War Against Hamas
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?
What Goes Into Survival: A Report from the Washington Rally
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.
Then and Now: Two Wars
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.
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and the Halakhot of Hostages: Part I
According to halakhah, should the terrorists imprisoned in Israel be released, as Hamas demands, to save the lives of the abducted Jews?
Welcome to the New Campus Normal: A Dispatch from Ohio State
"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.
Kibbutz Be’eri, Chaos, and Creation
"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."
Pogroms, Politics, and the Association for Jewish Studies
"Only the word horrific seemed apt; the rest of the statement managed the rare feat of being both drab and discordant."