Modern Times
How the Likud Came to BeFriday, April 22, 2011 by Elliot Jager | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Benjamin Netanyahu no doubt took comfort from a recent survey showing that 76 percent of Likud members opposed annexing all of Judea and Samaria. Yet he would also have known that 10,000 party recruits had been newly signed up by uncompromising settler leaders. How to keep the Likud ("Union") together and in the center of Israel's political mainstream?
Eichmann Goes DigitalMonday, April 18, 2011 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
This year, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Eichmann trial, Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority, together with the Israel State Archives, has posted to YouTube an extraordinary series of videos: over 200 hours of courtroom sessions and testimonies in the original Hebrew, German, and Yiddish, as well as a parallel set with English voiceover. What do they tell us?
A New Germany?Thursday, April 14, 2011 by Elliot Jager | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
At a joint press conference in Berlin on April 7, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked German Chancellor Angela Merkel for the atmosphere of mutual trust and friendship in which their just-concluded talks had taken place. Germany, he averred, was "a great friend" of Israel. Yet any sober assessment of the Germany-Israel relationship would have to come to a different conclusion.
Clash of CivilizationsFriday, April 8, 2011 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
The death toll in Afghanistan has passed the two-dozen mark in the riots "inspired" by Pastor Terry Jones's burning of a Quran in Florida. The grisly political theater has served its purpose.
“We Love Death”Wednesday, April 6, 2011 by Aryeh Tepper | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
In 2007, two years before he killed thirteen people and wounded twenty-nine at Fort Hood, Texas, Nidal Malik Hasan prepared a slide show for his fellow Army doctors on the subject of Islam. One of his last points read: "We love death more than you love life!"
Gandhi and the JewsTuesday, April 5, 2011 by Elliot Jager | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
A new book about Mohandas Gandhi (1869–1948) has set off stormy protests in India for implying that the country's founding father was bisexual. That's only the beginning of it.
Gaza Endgame?Wednesday, March 30, 2011 by Elliot Jager | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
A March 26 meeting in Ramallah between an unofficial delegation of West Bank Hamas "parliamentarians" and Mahmoud Abbas, chairman of the Palestinian Authority and leader of the Fatah party, was ostensibly about reconciling the two factions. Actually it was about much more.
Jewish Studies in Decline?Monday, March 28, 2011 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Reports prepared recently for Israel's Council of Higher Education have brought despairing news about the condition of the humanities in the country's universities. Especially dispiriting is the report on Jewish studies, once the crowning glory of Israel's flagship Hebrew University—and, in the report's inadvertently nostalgic words, "an investment in the nurturing of the deep spiritual and cultural structures of Israeli public and private life." That investment has been producing ever smaller returns.
The Turkish ModelThursday, March 24, 2011 by Elliot Jager | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Considering the current upheaval in the Arab world, some optimists foresee the possibility of Islamic parties coming to power by democratic means and the consequent emergence of Turkish-style political systems. But how firm is Turkey's own commitment to democratic principles?
The Fate of Muslim ModeratesMonday, March 21, 2011 by Elliot Jager | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
The recent uprisings in the Middle East seemed, at least at first, to send a reassuring signal to Western observers: not only did genuinely moderate Muslims exist, and not only were they capable of finding a political voice, but there was reason to hope that, given time to organize and grow in strength, they might succeed in winning out against the voices of repression and Islamist extremism.
Editors' Picks
Abdullah's Apartheid Mudar Zahran, Jerusalem Post. Why Jordan's king is worried about the Arab Spring making its way to his doorstep.
The Frozen Chosen Yereth Rosen, Moment. Roosevelt's plan to resettle Jewish refugees in Alaska came to nothing, as locals doubted that the newcomers could adapt. But unbeknownst to them, Jews had been among Alaska's pioneers.
America, Israel, and the Future of Liberal Democracy Leon Wieseltier, Yuval Levin, Tikvah Fund. Israel has a very different political tradition from the United States, yet both countries' systems are showing signs of strain. Does liberal democracy have a future? (Video)
Eyewitnesses at Auschwitz Martin Bright, Jewish Chronicle. A campaign to open British government files may finally reveal the story of the British POWs who witnessed Nazi brutality and helped Jewish prisoners escape.
A Mask for Janus Margalit Fox, New York Times. For a generation of Reform Jews, the commentary of the recently deceased W. Gunther Plaut heralded a return to Hebrew scripture. But it also made new interpretations permissible.
The Ten Commandments and the Bill of Rights Mark Osler, Journal of Church and State. In some ways the two decalogues are at loggerheads; in other ways, they work together.
With These Words Fred MacDowell, On the Main Line. With one salty term of consecration (possibly an obscene rhyme), a Jewish man may have betrothed a woman. In 1823, the rabbis of London had to deal with the consequences.
Warming to Israel Moshe Arens, Haaretz. With the advent of the Arab Spring, the press predicted that Israel would be alone on the world stage. But burgeoning relationships with the Netherlands, Canada, and the Obama administration suggest otherwise.
Blessed are the Bootleggers Allan Nadler, Tablet. While rabbis opposed Prohibition in the name of religious freedom, and many Jews embraced the black market, one Izzy Einstein became the most successful enforcer of dry laws in the country.
Mincing Words Philologos, Forward. The Yiddish expression makhn ash un blote—"to make ashes and mud" or "to make mincemeat" of someone—exemplifies the influence of biblical idiom on Yiddish phraseology.