Nakba and Narrative  Matti Friedman,  Times of Israel.  The simple narrative of the 1948 displacement of Palestinian Arabs erases the uncomfortable truth that half of Israel's Jews are there not because of the Nazis but because of the Arabs themselves.  SAVE

Not Fit to Print  Nick Pinto,  Village Voice.  What's missing from the New York Times' front-page stories on sex abuse in Brooklyn's ultra-Orthodox communities? The reportage lifted from Jewish media outlets without attribution.  SAVE

Israel's Gay Pride  Giulio Meotti,  Ynet.  The story of gay Palestinians sheltered by Israel—some 300 in the last 20 years—goes unreported in the Western media, which is happy to hold Arabs to a lower standard.  SAVE

Body Language  Arika Okrent,  Lapham's Quarterly.  Jews tended to use one hand, Italians both. Italians touched their own bodies, Jews touched the bodies of their conversational partners. But as Jews and Italians became American, so did their gestures.  SAVE

Campaign for Relegitimization  Joel Fishman,  Israel Council on Foreign Relations.  It is no longer enough for Israel to proclaim that it seeks peace. Although it is unfashionable to speak in such terms, we are also engaged in a religious war. (PDF)  SAVE

“Thou whoreson, obscene, greasy tallow-catch . . .”  Amit Gevaryahu,  Talmud Blog.  What distinction does a 13th-century talmudic responsum draw between calling someone a "mamzer" and calling someone a "whore's son"?  SAVE

Megalopolis  Avital Lahav,  Ynet.  Is the solution to Israel's housing crisis the creation of a mega-city encompassing much of central Israel?  SAVE

Sally Priesand and the Reality Principle  Michele Alperin,  JNS.  Forty years ago, the first woman rabbi intended to get married and have children, and planned to have a nursery next to her synagogue office. Reality turned out to be different.  SAVE

Israel's Future Air Force  Amir Mizroch,  Wired.  Nano drones that an infantryman can pull out of his pocket, robots that can extract wounded soldiers from the battlefield, algorithms that resolve pilots' ethical dilemmas . . .  SAVE

Black Hats and Cassocks  Avi Shafran,  Jewish Week.  Prudent, measured insularity is not asceticism, and Haredim aren't monks.  SAVE

Common Denominator  Bryan Schwartzman,  Jewish Exponent.  Across denominational lines, rabbis are facing the same problems—and are actually working together to solve them.  SAVE

A Serious Man  Joseph Epstein,  New Criterion.  One day Hilton Kramer appeared to drop off his copy in person at the New Leader offices. The editor asked him if he knew anyone who was looking for a job. "Actually, I do," he said. "Me."  SAVE

The Revolutionary Imperative and the Non-Jewish Jew  Colin Shindler,  Jewish Chronicle.  The Balfour Declaration and the October Revolution happened within days of each other. Which path were Jews with a social conscience to follow?  SAVE

Policy Repercussions  David Makovsky,  Washington Institute.  How will Israel's new national unity government pursue policy vis-à-vis domestic issues, Iran, the Palestinians, and U.S.-Israel relations?  SAVE

American Hebrew Poetry?  Jerome Chanes,  Forward.  One of the best-kept secrets of Jewish American history is the creation of an indigenous Hebrew poetry in the first half of the 20th century.  SAVE

Civil Marriage Coming to Israel?  Joshua Hammerman,  Times of Israel.  Israeli opinion on gay marriage appears to be liberalizing, and Obama's endorsement of same-sex marriage has already sparked debate in the Knesset.  SAVE

Judaism's Sexual Revolution  Dennis Prager,  Crisis.  When Judaism demanded that all sexual activity be channeled into heterosexual marriage, it changed the world—and made Western civilization possible. (1993)  SAVE

The Real Opportunity at Hand  Dov Lipman,  Jerusalem Post.  A stable coalition without the ultra-Orthodox parties means that now there is a real chance for change in Israel's policies toward Haredim.  SAVE

Homosexuality and Halakhah  Michael Gold,  MyJewishLearning.  What do traditional Jewish sources actually say about homosexuality?  SAVE

Stubborn Hope  David P. Goldman,  Tablet.  Bernard Lewis' hopes for Muslim society resonated with characteristic American generosity and optimism. And so his disappointment also is ours.  SAVE

A Conservative Catechism  Diane Cole,  Jewish Week.  Ten years in the making, the Conservative movement's Observant Life covers halakhah, ethics, and thorny modern issues. Will it resonate with the youth it obviously wishes to court?  SAVE

The Future Belongs to Religious Conservatives  Eric Kaufmann,  American.  The Jewish example shows that population change can reverse secularism and shift society's center of gravity in a conservative religious direction. It's happening in the U.S.  SAVE

Forward!  Seth Lipsky,  Daily Beast.  Obama is getting razzed for the hard-Left associations of his new campaign slogan. But the newspaper that made the name "Forward" famous may have been the most anti-Communist in U.S. history.  SAVE