Leading Figures
B’haalot’kha: Missing Miriam
Thursday, May 23, 2013 by Torah Talk with Michael Carasik | Jewish Ideas Daily » Weekly Portions
Miriam—and how surprisingly little we know about her. (Click here for source sheet.) Download
The Riddle of the SatmarThursday, 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.
Simply the BeshtFriday, 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."
Covering the BasesMonday, March 11, 2013 by Michael Arkush | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
"Sandy Koufax was not just the greatest left-handed pitcher I ever saw," recalled his biographer, Jane Leavy , at a recent celebration of Jewish baseball. "He’s also the greatest mensch I’ve ever met in my life."
When Liberal Protestants Were ZionistsTuesday, March 5, 2013 by Judah Bellin | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
It is hard to imagine a liberal Christian theologian passionately defending Zionism today. But Reinhold Niebuhr praised Zionism as a means to the establishment of "highest civilization."
Knowing When It’s Time to GoThursday, February 28, 2013 by Shlomo M. Brody | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
The Talmud states, "The older Torah scholars become, the greater wisdom increases within them." Yet the Torah imposes an age limit on spiritual leadership.
The Covenantal Thought of David HartmanThursday, February 21, 2013 by Ari Ackerman | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
By treating the covenant between God and the Jewish people as a partnership, David Hartman found room for autonomy alongside halakhic observance.
A Voice Saying Something RightTuesday, January 29, 2013 by David Curzon | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Poet Harvey Shapiro, who passed away this month at age 88, captured in plain words the mystery of everyday life, the trauma of war, and the grandeur of Jewish tradition.
It’s All Happening at the ZooMonday, January 7, 2013 by D. G. Myers | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Howard Jacobson's latest novel, Zoo Time, is not immediately recognizable as Jewish fiction; but Jacobson again portrays the fear, uncertainty, and ambivalence that characterize the modern Jew.
Dr. Orlinsky and Mr. GreenFriday, January 4, 2013 by Michael Carasik | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Harry Orlinsky is best known today as “Mr. Green,” the scholar who authenticated the four Dead Sea Scrolls offered for sale in a Wall Street Journal want ad. But his legacy as a Bible scholar is enormous.
Editors' Picks
Kissinger the Jew Gil Troy, Tablet. “The outsider even as an insider, he endured the president’s anti-Semitic rants—and then endured the same contemptuous cries of ‘Jew-boy’ from harsh critics in Israel.”
Nabokov's Jews Benjamin Ivry, Forward. A sympathetic portrayer of Jews in his fiction, Vladimir Nabokov denounced anti-Semitism as "philistinism in all its phases" in both Russia and the United States.
Remembering Geza Vermes Mark Goodacre, NT Blog. An authority on the early history of both Judaism and Christianity, Geza Vermes, who passed away this week, translated the Dead Sea Scrolls and revolutionized the academic study of Jesus.
How Powerful Are the Chief Rabbis? Haviv Rettig Gur, Times of Israel. Foreign Policy may believe Israel's chief rabbis number among the world's 500 most powerful people, but "there are certainly more influential rabbis in the Jewish world—and even in Israel."
"Was I a Man or a Jerk?" David Wolpe, Los Angeles Review of Books. Greg Bellow's memoir of his father, author Saul Bellow, reveals "a sort of uneasy, seesaw truce between a famous, domineering, and rageful father, and a sensitive son."
Before Marx Became Marxist John Gray, New York Review of Books. "The man who would write the Communist Manifesto just five years later was advocating the use of the army to suppress a communist workers' uprising!"
Thatcher's Other Special Relationship Shimon Cohen, Jewish Chronicle. A confidant and adviser throughout her time in office, Margaret Thatcher said of Chief Rabbi Immanuel Jakobovits: "He was my friend—I relied on him and miss him so."
“The Feminist Time Forgot” Susan Faludi, New Yorker. Shulamith Firestone rejected her Orthodox upbringing and authoritarian father to become one of the leaders of late 1960s radical feminism. But her father's death reduced her to insanity.
Shalit’s Return: Summing Up Up Ben Caspit, Jerusalem Post. “The bottom line is that the soldier came home and started a new life, and Israeli society held firm to the solidarity for which is it famous.”
Memorializing the Rav David Shatz, YU News. On the occasion of Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik's 20th yahrzeit, some thoughts on how his thought will be conveyed to a generation that did not know him.