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Hasidism


The Riddle of the Satmar The Riddle of the Satmar
Thursday, May 23, 2013 by Allan Nadler | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

In this review of an adulatory biography of the Satmar rebbe, first published February 17, 2011, Allan Nadler considers Judaism's most traditional—and most alienated—community. 
A Time Capsule A Time Capsule
Tuesday, May 7, 2013 by Glenn Dynner | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Petitions (kvitlekh) addressed to the 19th-century miracle worker Rabbi Elijah Guttmacher provide something almost never found in hoary Hebrew tomes or official Polish documents: windows into the struggles and secret anxieties of everyday Jews in Eastern Europe.
Simply the Besht Simply the Besht
Friday, April 26, 2013 by Glenn Dynner | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Earlier biographers of the Ba'al Shem Tov had left him shrouded in the mists of legend.  But Moshe Rosman insisted that "only by bringing the Besht down to earth will it be possible to evaluate his way in the service of heaven."
Where Does the Modern Period of Jewish History Begin? Where Does the Modern Period of Jewish History Begin?
Friday, January 18, 2013 by Michael A. Meyer | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

In this classic 1975 Judaism article, Michael Meyer argues that there is no value in "setting a definite terminus for the beginning of modern Jewish history."
Buczacz by Way of Newark: On Literary Lives at the End Buczacz by Way of Newark: On Literary Lives at the End
Thursday, January 10, 2013 by Jeffrey Saks | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Philip Roth has bowed out gracefully from the literary world.  But for the great Hebrew writer S. Y. Agnon, retirement was never an option.
Not Dead Yet: The Remarkable Renaissance of Cantorial Music Not Dead Yet: The Remarkable Renaissance of Cantorial Music
Tuesday, December 25, 2012 by Allan Nadler | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

After a half-century of steady decline, two unlikely Jewish groups are reviving hazzanut.
Clothes Make the Man Clothes Make the Man
Friday, December 7, 2012 by Chaim Saiman | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

The recent daf yomi Shabbat 63 appears to present just the technicalities of what can and cannot be transported on Shabbat.  Yet it is simultaneously an exploration of war, peace, and the nature of manhood.
The <i>Tish</i> and the Thanksgiving Table The Tish and the Thanksgiving Table
Wednesday, November 21, 2012 by Allan Nadler | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

In a scene in Avalon, Barry Levinson’s cinematic memoir of growing up in Baltimore with his Yiddish-speaking immigrant parents, Uncle Gabriel Krichinsky, brilliantly played by Lou Jacobi, arrives—late, as usual—for the extended Krichinsky family’s annual Thanksgiving dinner.
Lives of the Ex-Haredim Lives of the Ex-Haredim
Tuesday, August 2, 2011 by Joshua Halberstam | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

"Wherefore art thou Romeo?" Juliet calls out in pristine Yiddish from the heights of her fire escape.  Melissa (Malky) Weisz, who plays Juliet in the recent film Romeo & Juliet in Yiddish, probably asked the same question in a more vernacular Yiddish—and with very different expectations—in her earlier life.
The Riddle of the Satmar The Riddle of the Satmar
Thursday, February 17, 2011 by Allan Nadler | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

A prospect terrifying to secular Israelis and Zionists worldwide has been the rapid growth of the Jewish state's ultra-Orthodox (haredi) community. Given the stranglehold of haredi political parties on recent coalition governments, and the encroachments by non-Zionist haredi clerics upon Israel's chief rabbinate, once religiously moderate and firmly Zionist, the fear is not entirely irrational.
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Editors' Picks
Where Worlds Collide Eli Rubin, Chabad.org. "At Sinai—the Torah tells us—'God descended upon the mountain.'  From this point on, man would be able to enjoy a direct relationship with the essentiality of the divine self."
Sing to the Lord A New Song Samuel Lewis, Musical Opinion. Israel not only punches above its weight in classical music, but has also cultivated a unique musical voice.
Havah Nagilah: From Niggun To Cliché Chavie Lieber, JTA. Today, it is the clichéd stuff of American weddings.  But it began in Europe as a Hasidic niggun, and picked up its words in 20th-century Palestine.
Beyond the Tanya Eli Rubin, Chabad.org. The Tanya, by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, remains the foundational text of Chabad Hasidism.  But it was Shneur Zalman's oral teachings that built a movement.
Chabad, the Corporation Maya Balakirsky Katz, Sh'ma. By not appointing a successor, the Rebbe sowed the seeds of Chabad's institutional transformation from a Hasidic dynasty to a successful religious corporation.
Very Superstitious Eli D. Clark, Torah Musings. While science and technology have supplanted magic and the occult in the West, Jews have not only retained old superstitions, but invented some new ones. 
Carlebach's Broken Mirror Shaul Magid, Tablet. “He told fantastical stories about a prewar Jewish world that never existed. He knew that. We knew that. But it didn’t matter.”  
What Happens in Uman Stays in Uman Cnaan Liphshiz, Times of Israel. The Breslovers, who have gained adherents in Israel’s prisons, converge on Uman each Rosh Hashanah—and engage in some less-than-religious behavior.  Just ask the visiting sex workers.
Chabad vs. Chabad Paul Berger, Forward. What’s at stake in a decades-long battle by a powerful Lubavitch rabbi to take over the deed to a 150-family synagogue in a Detroit suburb?
The Visionary Joshua Runyan, Tamar Runyan, Chabad.org. The true scope of businessman and philanthropist Sami Rohr’s charity is still not fully known, and perhaps may never be.