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Leading Figures


The Great Orthodox Comeback The Great Orthodox Comeback
Tuesday, November 1, 2011 by Lawrence Grossman | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

The resurgence of Orthodoxy may be the most profound, and is certainly the most surprising, transformation of Judaism in the past 60 years. 
The Genesis of Modern Science The Genesis of Modern Science
Tuesday, October 18, 2011 by David Curzon | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Descartes, Newton, and the other founders of modern science were all believers in the truths of the opening chapter in the Hebrew Bible.
Rosh Hashanah with the Chief Rabbi Rosh Hashanah with the Chief Rabbi
Tuesday, September 20, 2011 by Lawrence Grossman | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Ten years ago, the first day of Rosh Hashanah—the two-day Jewish New Year—fell on September 18. That was one week after September 11, 2001, when almost 3,000 people were killed by Muslim terrorists. On that Rosh Hashanah, rabbis did not lack for sermon topics.
Israel’s Isolation Problem Israel’s Isolation Problem
Thursday, September 15, 2011 by Elliot Jager | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Aryeh Golan, the morning news anchor for Israeli public radio, summed up the feelings of Israelis on Sunday when he said, "In Turkey the government is against us, in Egypt the mob is against us, and at the UN the majority is against us."
Peace Treaty Troubles Peace Treaty Troubles
Tuesday, September 6, 2011 by Elliot Jager | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

With Turkish-Israel relations at a nadir, ties with Jordan practically on life support, the push for UN recognition of a Palestinian state, and the security threats stemming from Iran and its proxies, it's no wonder that Jerusalem has been considering taking exceptional steps to preserve its cold peace with Cairo.
Who Speaks for Israeli Arabs? Who Speaks for Israeli Arabs?
Wednesday, August 24, 2011 by Elliot Jager | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Historians writing about Israel's 1948 fight for independence generally place heavy responsibility for the Palestinian Arab refugee problem on the Arab leaders who urged their people to flee Palestine temporarily until the Zionists were driven into the sea.
What’s Behind Israel’s Middle-Class Revolt? What’s Behind Israel’s Middle-Class Revolt?
Wednesday, August 17, 2011 by Ran Baratz | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Amid the flood of press comments about the "middle-class" protests that have been roiling the Israeli scene over the past weeks, a particularly cheerful note was struck by the American political philosopher Michael Walzer.
Israel and the Antipodes Israel and the Antipodes
Monday, August 15, 2011 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

During the February 2011 earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, a boulder smashed into a car, killing 23-year-old Israeli Ofer Mizrahi.  The death toll from that earthquake was 181, including two Israelis besides Mizrahi.
The Palestinian Mandela? The Palestinian Mandela?
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 by Elliot Jager | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

To his Israeli backers, Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti is the "Palestinian [Nelson] Mandela."  That image—of a principled, graying freedom fighter with the courage to move his people toward reconciliation—is promoted by political and cultural figures on the Israeli Left.
Reconstructing Judaism Reconstructing Judaism
Wednesday, August 3, 2011 by Joseph J. Siev | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

At a time when all three major Jewish denominations in America—Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform—find themselves in a state of deep internal fracture, a fourth and much smaller movement, Reconstructionism, has just voted to create a unified body to coordinate the activities of its lay and rabbinical arms.
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Editors' Picks
Paranoid or Realist? Jeffrey Goldberg, Bloomberg. Benzion Netanyahu gave his son, Israel's prime minister, a dark view of the Middle East—and, therefore, the ability to negotiate a realistic peace.
What About Gantz? David Horovitz, Times of Israel. In assessing the Iranian nuclear threat, we should listen to the current head of Israel's military rather than out-of-the-loop retired generals.
The Patriarch Michal Shmulovich, Times of Israel. While Benzion Netanyahu will go down in history as a pathbreaking scholar and political activist, Israel's prime minister will remember the father who braved a snowstorm rather than let his son go to bed hungry.
Lions and Angels Adin Steinsaltz, PBS. How did the legendary rabbinic scholar, who was raised in a secular household, become religious? "It was almost spontaneous." (Video)
1948: Palestine Betrayed Efraim Karsh, Elliot Jager, Jewish Ideas Daily. Zionist Jews were not interlopers in Palestine. The creation of the Jewish state was not an "original sin" foisted upon the Arab world. The tragic flight of the Palestinian refugees was overwhelmingly not the fault of the Zionists. To the contrary, at every momentous junction the Zionists opted for compromise and peace, the Arabs for intransigence and belligerency.  This, in summary, is how most people once understood the Arab-Israel conflict. Today, however, as Israel marks its Independence Day, an entire generation has come to maturity believing a diametrically opposite "narrative" . . . 
The Practice of Musar Geoffrey Claussen, Conservative Judaism. The Conservative movement likes to see itself as intellectual one. But it might have something to learn from a 19th-century movement of strenuous moral development.
Hail to the Chief? Dianna Cahn, JTA. Now that modern-day Judaism is losing ground as a uniform community in Britain, many are asking whether the chief rabbi can—or should—continue to try to unite Jewry under a single umbrella.
A “Holocaust Complex”? Yair Sheleg, Haaretz. It is not only the Israeli Right that was traumatized by the Holocaust and thus views the world with apprehension. The Israeli peace camp also has a distorted view of the world due to that very same trauma.
Face to Face Gavi Brown, Kol Hamevaser. One was a talmudist, the other an ontologist—yet the two figures' work reveals striking similarities. Either it was a case of plagiarism or an instance of cosmic significance.
Abba Eban The Mike Wallace Interview. Arnold Toynbee, says Eban, "takes the massacre of millions of our men, women and children" and "compares it to the plight of Arab refugees alive, on their kindred soil, suffering certain anguish, but of course possessed of the supreme gift of life. This equation . . . is, I think, a distortion of any historic perspective." (Video; 1958)