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."
Not Rain
"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."
Akedat Hannah
Hannah's vow binds Samuel to an altar just as Abraham bound Isaac, but her sacrifice has a different origin and her story a different ending.
Indiana Jones and the Meme-ification of Nazis
What happens when pop culture becomes responsible for maintaining historical memory? Benjamin Weiner has a bad feeling about it.
When Freedom Began to Ring
How the land of opportunity became the opportune land for Jews to thrive.
Where She Has Gone
The book of Ruth has inspired Oscar-winning films, medieval kabbalists, rugged kibbutzniks, and gifted artists. What is it about this book that makes it so engaging?
Walking Upright
“The book’s greatest contribution is fighting Jewish historical amnesia.”