Jewish Ideas Daily has been succeeded and re-launched as Mosaic. Read more...

Martin Buber


The Decline of the Rabbi-Intellectual The Decline of the Rabbi-Intellectual
Tuesday, April 30, 2013 by Zach Mann | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

The congregation-based scholars of yesteryear labored to make Judaism intellectually stimulating as well as emotionally stirring and politically applicable.  
From Reparations to Atonement From Reparations to Atonement
Monday, January 28, 2013 by Ismar Schorsch | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Where recognition of the Holocaust was once restricted to the office of the Chancellor, there is a grassroots commitment in today's Germany to take ownership of the past.
The Most Influential Jewish Philosopher You Never Heard Of The Most Influential Jewish Philosopher You Never Heard Of
Monday, November 12, 2012 by Diane Cole | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Adapt or die: this principle now permeates discussions among not just biologists but anthropologists, sociologists, and even theologians seeking the origins of religion in an evolutionary need for group survival.  
Heschel in Yiddish and Hebrew Heschel in Yiddish and Hebrew
Wednesday, March 14, 2012 by Yehudah Mirsky | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Standing at Sinai, "All the people were seeing the thunder" (Exodus 20:15), seeing the sounds. The word "revelation" would be somewhat misleading, since nothing was unveiled: The mountain was wreathed in cloud and smoke.
A Humanist Bible? A Humanist Bible?
Monday, December 12, 2011 by Armin Rosen | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

According to Jewish tradition, the Torah was delivered to Moses by God on Mount Sinai thousands of years ago. A.C. Grayling's The Good Book claims humbler origins. That text was given to us by an English philosophy professor this past summer.
Editors' Picks
Bad Education Vigen Guroian, Imaginative Conservative. "I try to explain to my pupils that envy is despicable," wrote Martin Buber, "and at once I feel the secret resistance of those who are poorer than their comrades."
Arendt and the Arabs Richard L. Rubenstein, New English Review. Hannah Arendt feared that Zionism would create a “Jewish island in an Arab sea.”  But her Eurocentrism kept her from seeing just how hostile that sea would be.
Martin Buber and the Holocaust Richard L. Rubenstein, New English Review. Martin Buber was the preeminent Jewish thinker of his generation and the intellectual leader of German Jewry during its darkest hour. So why does his theology ignore the Holocaust?