Today's Picks content items

Should We Worry about Adelson?

Ira Sharkansky — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

Sheldon Adelson almost single-handedly kept Newt Gingrich's candidacy alive. Maybe that's bad for the Jews—or maybe Adelson is just providing some ideological balance to George Soros.

Auster and Erdogan on Human Rights in Turkey

Dave Itzkoff — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

The Turkish Prime Minister called the novelist ignorant for refusing to visit Turkey because of all those journalists in Turkish jails. Auster has delivered quite an answer.

Reading the Netanyahu Tea Leaves

Zvika Krieger — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

Does the collapse of recent Israeli-Palestinian exploratory talks mask an increased flexibility in the Prime Minister's position on Israeli control of the Jordan Valley? The Atlantic is hopeful.

Independent is the New Democrat

Ilana Ostrin — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

Jewish affiliation with the Democratic Party has dropped by ten percent since 2009. This won't hurt President Obama—but may affect other electoral races in 2012.

The Wages of Criticism

Zev Eleff — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

The 18th-century scholar Aryeh Leib Ginsburg was a harsh critic of earlier halakhic authorities. Did they finally exact revenge on him? And, if so, who's been covering up the story?

Who's Afraid of a Nuclear Iran?

Douglas Murray — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

Israel is—and since 1973, Israel has had reason to think that on the brink of its annihilation, Europe wouldn't act to save it. (Video)

Ardor, or Architecture

Yonatan Silverman — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

The holiness of Jerusalem in the Muslim tradition owes less to the Koran than it does to the opportunistic building program of Jerusalem's eight-century Umayyad rulers.

Cancelling Conversion

Gil Student — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

While many Orthodox rabbis have become too willing to annul conversions, even the non-Orthodox world recognizes that there are some circumstances in which a conversion must be overturned.

History without Witnesses

Deborah E. Lipstadt — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

As the Holocaust disappears from living memory, what matters is not who is speaking but who is listening.

Barter in Bartaa

Tali Heruti-Sover — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

Straddling the Green Line, the village of Bartaa has become a booming market town. Or, rather, the Palestinian half has.

Flame War

D.G. Myers — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

A science fiction writer would have taken the trouble to devise a plausible explanation for the premise of his novel. Not Ben Marcus, the well-known apostle of "experimental" writing, though.

X-Rated Dispute in Knesset

Philologos — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

The author feels blessed "to live in a country in which an Arab Member of Parliament can wittily abuse a Jewish colleague in a Hebrew that causes my Israeli-born daughter to convulse with hysterics."

Sabra-Rattling

Haim Shine — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

The latest survey on Israeli religion shows that Labor Zionism's attempt to replace Judaism with Israeliness has failed.

Amid the Alien Corn

Alan Brill — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

By 1965, the now-renowned Orthodox rabbi and writer Aryeh Kaplan had relinquished physics graduate school and took a pulpit position in Mason City, Iowa, at a congregation that only had a late Friday night service. (Part II; part I is here.)

Jews, Booze, and Americanization

Sam Roberts — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

Prohibition presented a dilemma for Jews: Should they insist on an exemption for sacramental wine, or break with the past for the sake of assimilation?

Blurring the Issue

Hadassah Levy — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST

Blurring or removing photographs of women might be understandable in the ultra-Orthodox world, but it should have no place in Modern Orthodoxy.

The Mufti and the U.S. Election

Rafael Medoff — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST

A mufti calls for violence against Jews, Netanyahu demands Palestinian leaders disavow him, and America's presidential race could be affected. That could be a news report from last week. Or from 1946.

"Subbotniks"

Eli Ashkenazi — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST

In 1876, a community of converts left their native Russia to settle in the Galilee, forsaking their Christian past. Now their descendants are rediscovering their roots.

Hard Times for Hamas

Guy Bechor — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST

Its rhetoric is as fierce as ever, but since it's been strangled in Jordan, expelled from Syria, and defunded by Iran, Hamas lacks the friends and money to match.

Restrictions on the Reformation

Dean Phillip Bell — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST

The Hebraism which permeated the Reformation did not necessarily translate into increased tolerance of Jews.