Article Archives

Make Yourself a Teacher

The meanings of "Torah" are inexhaustible, but its plainest sense is "teaching." It does not exist apart from being communicated. That circulation between human beings, and between humans and God, both gives Torah life and teaches us that Torah itself teaches life.

Scholarship and Anti-Semitism at Yale

Almost a year has passed since Yale University shuttered the five-year-old Yale Interdisciplinary Initiative for the Study of Anti-Semitism, known by the unwieldy acronym "YIISA," and replaced it with the Yale Program for the Study of Anti-Semitism, or "YPSA."

Ardor, or Architecture

A look inside three of the twentieth century's most interesting careers in architecture: the world-renowned Israeli Moshe Safdie, on the verge of shutting down the office he opened in Jerusalem in 1970; the Polish-born, polarizing Daniel Libeskind, now at work on rebuilding New York's World Trade Center; and the mythic postwar master Louis Kahn.

Marching to Jerusalem

Protests, marches, sit-ins, boycotts—all these nonviolent techniques have been employed in support of the Palestinian cause, but violence has remained at the core of the enterprise. For decades, well-meaning people have suggested that a wholehearted embrace of nonviolence would do more for the Palestinians than their continuing resort to terrorism.

Varieties of Post-Religious Experience

Israel is, on top of everything else, a gigantic open-air laboratory for experiments in Judaism and Jewish identity, mixing and matching old and new forms, deliberately and on the fly. One of the more interesting recent specimens is Religiozionisticus Postreligious.

Mothering and Smothering

When did "natural" become a synonym for "good" or "better"? Advertisers tell us that everything from our food to our skincare is better when it's used in its most natural state. But haven't the philosophers tried hard to get us out of the state of nature?

The Book of Numbers

Jewish ambivalence about demography goes back a long way. The Bible, in several places, meticulously enumerates each tribe's population even while warning that conducting head counts can bring dire consequences.

Martyr in Waiting

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative Khader Adnan, currently under administrative detention in Israel, has announced the end of his 66-day hunger strike in exchange for a commitment by Israeli authorities to set him free on April 17. His pending release raises a moral dilemma.

Ron Silver’s Risk

Three years ago today, Ron Silver—actor, director, producer, radio host, and political activist—died of esophageal cancer at the age of 62. Today he is sorely misremembered; but his legacy is worth fighting for.

Heschel in Yiddish and Hebrew

Standing at Sinai, "All the people were seeing the thunder" (Exodus 20:15), seeing the sounds. The word "revelation" would be somewhat misleading, since nothing was unveiled: The mountain was wreathed in cloud and smoke.