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Exile


The New Rosh Hashanah The New Rosh Hashanah
Wednesday, April 17, 2013 by Elli Fischer | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

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.
Go to Ammon and Moab Go to Ammon and Moab
Monday, February 25, 2013 by Daniel Gordis | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Imagining themselves to be the wise men consulted on Vashti’s fate, the Rabbis deferred to the Jews’ enemies, saying, “from the day when we were exiled from our land, wisdom has been taken from us."
If I Forget Thee? If I Forget Thee?
Tuesday, January 15, 2013 by Allan Arkush | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

As a recent seminar at New York's Mechon Hadar testified, throughout Jewish tradition, everyone—even the anti-Zionists—recognizes that the Land of Israel has more sanctity than any other place.  But what follows from that?
The First War of National Liberation The First War of National Liberation
Wednesday, December 12, 2012 by Diana Muir Appelbaum | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

The Maccabees' revolt can lay claim to being the first war of national liberation.  Reprinted here is Diana Muir Appelbaum’s account of why the Book of Maccabees is so modern and so dangerous.
The Sigd Festival Comes Home to Jerusalem The Sigd Festival Comes Home to Jerusalem
Wednesday, December 5, 2012 by Shai Afsai | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

On the Sigd, Ethiopian Jews would walk to a mountaintop and pray to return to Jerusalem.  Now they are in Jerusalem, and the Sigd is a national holiday in Israel.
Editors' Picks
. . . at Israel’s Expense Michael Freund, Jerusalem Post. "At a time such as this, when aliyah is dwindling, it is incumbent upon every Orthodox Jew in America and elsewhere to look in the mirror and ask himself with unadorned honesty: Where do I really belong?"
The Festival of Exile Adin Steinsaltz, Jewish Journal. The story of Megillat Esther, says Steinsaltz, "looks like a simplistic melodrama" but "takes on a serious meaning as the mirror of Jewish history."
Why Are We Still Fasting? Daniel Pinner, Arutz Sheva. Both Purim and Pesach celebrate the deliverance of the Jewish people.  But the fast preceding each festival reminds us that "to achieve redemption, we first have to go through a measure of suffering."
Israel's First Election Leah Abramowitz, Moses Yekutiel Alpert, Orthodox Union. "After 2,000 years of Exile, actually since the six days of Creation, we have never had an opportunity as today—that we can go and vote in a Jewish State." (1949)
Josephus the Jew Benjamin Balint, Wall Street Journal. Yigael Yadin called Josephus “a great historian and a bad Jew.”  But a new book argues that if Josephus was a traitor, “it was to a reckless nationalism he never favored, not to Judaism.”
Hear, O Israel? Michael L. Satlow, Then and Now. There is no evidence of public Torah readings until the first century B.C.E.  So, how much did the Jews of antiquity know about the Bible?  
Exiled to the Holy Land Oren Kessler, Forward. “It might not be in my lifetime, but there will be a Circassian state. As someone once said, ‘If you will it, it is no dream.’”
Holding Fast to Tisha b'Av Zvi Leshem, Times of Israel. At what stage can we conclude that the Exile is over, and that we no longer have to torment ourselves with fasting?