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Ethics


Holocaust without End Holocaust without End
Wednesday, May 18, 2011 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Sixty-six years after the end of World War II, the Holocaust remains one of the central puzzles of human history. For Jews, the imperative is clear: to remember and to encourage others to remember. But remember what? Has the earnest dedication of both Jews and non-Jews to seek the meaning of the event and absorb its lessons ended by emptying it of meaning and lessons alike?
Eichmann Goes Digital Eichmann Goes Digital
Monday, April 18, 2011 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

This year, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Eichmann trial, Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority, together with the Israel State Archives, has posted to YouTube an extraordinary series of videos: over 200 hours of courtroom sessions and testimonies in the original Hebrew, German, and Yiddish, as well as a parallel set with English voiceover. What do they tell us?
Passover & the Repudiation of Idolatry Passover & the Repudiation of Idolatry
Friday, April 15, 2011 by Moshe Sokolow | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Asking questions is a trademark of the Passover seder. Prior to it, we can ask another question—this one having to do with a passage in the Haggadah about the second of the four sons.
Messianic Temptations Messianic Temptations
Thursday, April 7, 2011 by Yehudah Mirsky | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

The downfall of Moshe Katsav, the former president of Israel recently convicted and sentenced on a rape charge, is a many-sided episode—involving his crimes, the media circus around the judicial proceedings against him, and the private and public meanings of his disgrace.
Halakhah for Americans Halakhah for Americans
Friday, March 18, 2011 by Elli Fischer | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Asked in a 1975 New York Times interview how he had acquired his standing as America's most trusted authority in Jewish religious law (halakhah), Rabbi Moshe Feinstein (1895-1986) replied: ''If people see that one answer is good and another answer is good, gradually you will be accepted."
The Virtuoso of Judaism The Virtuoso of Judaism
Thursday, March 3, 2011 by Yehudah Mirsky | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Religious virtuosity comes in many forms. One of them is the ability to reconcile seeming irreconcilables, like faith and freedom, piety and intellect, revelation and science. The dream of synthesis has lured many in the past two centuries. One who seemed to live it was Joseph B. Soloveitchik.
Military Virtue, and Virtue Military Virtue, and Virtue
Monday, February 28, 2011 by Aryeh Tepper | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

On February 14, Benny Gantz was appointed the twentieth chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). It wasn't supposed to be that way. Yoav Galant, a decorated soldier and former head of the IDF's southern command, had been named to the position at the end of 2010.
Jewish Philanthropy 2.0 Jewish Philanthropy 2.0
Wednesday, February 23, 2011 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Jewish mega-donors are hardly news. It is also a commonplace that wealthy Jews allocate less than 25 percent of their giving to specifically Jewish causes. Of the two facts, the latter has understandably puzzled and frustrated fund raisers for Jewish causes. But is it really so mysterious?
Law and Morality Law and Morality
Monday, December 27, 2010 by Yehudah Mirsky | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Are ethics and law at odds? Does the law define what is ethical, or do ethical concerns have their own purchase on the law? These questions, universally applicable, have special relevance to a religious culture like Judaism, whose traditional law is embodied in the vast corpus of halakhah.
Whatever Happened to Moses Mendelssohn? Whatever Happened to Moses Mendelssohn?
Monday, December 6, 2010 by Allan Nadler | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

The great German-Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1781) was and remains a perplexing, rather sad, enigma.
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Editors' Picks
Humanimal David Sears, Torah Musings. The Torah prohibits animal cruelty and advocates sensitivity to the feelings of animals—which doesn't mean that Jewish disagreements with the animal rights movement aren't significant.
Arendt in Jerusalem Sol Stern, City Journal. With their monumental errors of political and moral judgment, Hannah Arendt's writings on Zionism, Israel, and the Holocaust have metastasized into a destructive legacy.
Shnorrers Simon Yisrael Feuerman, Tablet. One dollar buys you a torrent of blessings from the elderly Russians who sit in the synagogue literally with their hands out: A gut yahr, na zdrovie, they say. Spraznikom.  And those are just the regulars.     
Three Talmudists Confront the Evil Urge Shai Secunda, Amit Gevaryahu, Eva Kiesele, Raphael Magarik, Talmud Blog. A symposium on the psychological, historical, and rabbinic development of the yetzer hara picks up where Jewish Ideas Daily left off.      
Radical Orthodoxy Daniel Boyarin, Book of Doctrines and Opinions. The Talmud scholar imagines a religious practice, "free of the ethnocentrism and even racism that characterizes so much of contemporary orthodox language . . . that would authentically enable my own radical political commitments." (Interview with Alan Brill)
The Limits of Secularism Jonathan Sacks, Standpoint. Isaiah Berlin didn't understand how the Chief Rabbi could have studied philosophy at Cambridge and Oxford and still have faith. "Isaiah," said Sacks, "if it helps, think of me as a lapsed heretic."
False Equivalence Nathan Jeffay, Jewish Chronicle. It is supremely irresponsible to equate Shalit's captivity to Pollard's imprisonment, or the former's inhumane abduction by Hamas to the latter's due process in the U.S.
Saintly Scientist Benjamin Ivry, Forward. Co-winner of the 1925 Nobel Prize in physics, James Franck's achievements and extended hand to postwar Germany are long overdue for a returned hand from his native country.
The Ethics of Doctors' Strikes Shimon Glick, Jerusalem Post. The right of workers to strike is engrained in modern societies. But is it ethical for physicians to withhold treatment when human lives may be at stake?
Israeli Inflation Ronen Bergman, New York Times. The rising cost of the life of an Israeli hostage, from the Entebbe raid to the Shalit deal.