Article Archives

Orthodox Schooling: What Do We Know?

80 percent of American Jewish day school students are Orthodox, but there is little research on the state of Orthodox education—because the Orthodox community has never funded it.

The Bible: From One-Reeler to Docu-drama

The History Channel's The Bible is a small epic, with editorial choices that produce predictable results.  But some of this smallness yields unexpected insights.

Zionism Before Herzl

In 1876, 21 years before Herzl convened the First Zionist Congress, a non-Jewish woman, writing for an English audience, published a novel with a powerful Zionist message.  She went by the name of George Eliot. 

Faith and Matrimony

An initiative to admit intermarried students to Reform rabbinical schools is yet another indication that Reform Judaism is swiftly becoming not so much a religious movement as a Jewish activities club.

The Betrayal of Salonika’s Jews

When the Germans entered Salonika on April 6, 1941, they found a willing cadre of collaborators and a broad section of Greek Christian opinion hostile to the Jews.

The New Rosh Hashanah

The Jewish New Year is characterized by an uneasy combination of stock-taking and solemn celebration.  Yom Ha’atzma’ut, as the birthday of the Jewish state, is beginning to acquire a similar character.

The Challenge of Sovereignty

On the eve of Israel's independence, David Ben-Gurion sat alone, questioning whether a people so long accustomed to being the victims of sovereign power could take responsibility for themselves.

On Silence

Eschewing Jewish expressions of mourning, Israel's founding generations shaped a national ethos of silence and self-restraint, which found expression in the words of poet David Shimoni: “Don’t mourn, don’t cry/ at a time like this./ Don’t lower your head,/ Work! Work!”

Tithing and Taxes

A significant proportion of tax revenue is used for charitable purposes: food stamps, Social Security, housing assistance, public healthcare.  May Jews therefore count tax payments as charitable contributions?

Israel’s Gatekeepers

The Gatekeepers is not a history of Israel's security service, its operations and directors, but a political plea for the evacuation of the West Bank, the creation of a Palestinian state, and the suppression of Israeli’s religious settler movement.