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Pre-Modern & Modern


Identity = ? Identity = ?
Thursday, March 10, 2011 by Yehudah Mirsky | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

In discussions of that elusive entity known as "Jewishness," few terms have become so ubiquitous, and as a consequence so elusive, as "Jewish identity." The phrase regularly serves as the name of a communal dream: the wished-for end product that vast apparatuses of education, institution-building, and programming aim to instill and perpetuate. But what is it?
The Odessa File The Odessa File
Friday, March 4, 2011 by Allan Nadler | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Undoubtedly the most searing image of the port city of Odessa on the Black Sea is Sergei Eisenstein's reconstruction of a bloody massacre on its famed "Potemkin Steps" in his epic silent film, Battleship Potemkin (1925).
Jewish-Christian Dialogue Today Jewish-Christian Dialogue Today
Monday, February 21, 2011 by Yehudah Mirsky | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

How do today's Jews and Christians encounter one another? The most obvious way is in the countless interactions of Jewish and Christian colleagues and acquaintances in a host of daily settings, including exchanges on their respective religious attitudes and experiences.
Blood Libels Blood Libels
Monday, January 31, 2011 by Allan Nadler | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Among the unexpected consequences of the January 9 shooting tragedy in Tucson has been the introduction into American public discourse of a term seldom used and poorly understood.
Loving Jews, Hating Jews Loving Jews, Hating Jews
Monday, January 10, 2011 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

In their new book, American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us, the sociologists Robert Putnam and David Campbell advance the striking claim that "Jews are the most broadly popular religious group in America today."
The Huguenot Connection The Huguenot Connection
Monday, January 3, 2011 by Allan Nadler | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

In the darkest hours of the Holocaust, the safest place for Jews in occupied Europe may have been the southern French hamlet of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon.
The Continuing War for Safed The Continuing War for Safed
Thursday, December 16, 2010 by Aryeh Tepper | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Safed (Hebrew: Tsfat) is a picturesque town of 32,000 souls nestled in the hills of Galilee.  It is also home to a hardline branch of the Islamic Movement looking for ways to undermine Jewish sovereignty.
Christopher Hitchens’s Jewish Problem Christopher Hitchens’s Jewish Problem
Monday, December 13, 2010 by Benjamin Kerstein | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

It has been an open secret for years that the celebrated columnist and author Christopher Hitchens has a problem with the Jews. No one much likes to talk about it, and for various reasons his journalistic peers have remained silent on the subject. But it is nonetheless the case.
The Next UN Security Council The Next UN Security Council
Thursday, November 4, 2010 by Elliot Jager | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Israelis are not alone in rolling their eyes at the mere mention of the United Nations. Thanks to blocs of like-minded nations with interlocking leaderships and overlapping interests—the 53-member African Union, the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference, the 118-member "non-aligned" movement—an anti-Western and anti-Zionist tyranny of the majority has long been assured.
Hamas Looming Hamas Looming
Monday, September 20, 2010 by Elliot Jager | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Mahmoud Zahhar, a senior Hamas figure, was being ever so slightly disingenuous when he told the BBC that his movement would not attempt to halt the talks between Mahmoud Abbas and Benjamin Netanyahu because in any case they are bound to die a natural death on their own.
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Editors' Picks
In and Out of the Ghetto Roni Weinstein, H-Net. Meet Benedetto Blanis, a Jew in early modern Florence who taught Hebrew, alchemy, and kabbalah to one of the Medicis.
Jerusalem Syndrome Michael J. Totten, City Journal. The world's diplomats have convinced themselves that dividing the city of Jerusalem is the key to peace in the Middle East; they are deluded.
How Unpleasant to Meet Mr. Eliot! Benjamin Ivry, Forward. As his letters to colleagues and friends reveal, the anti-Semitic impulses of the great poet were deep, but varied in intensity and consistency according to circumstances.
Fighting Campus anti-Semitism Manfred Gerstenfeld, Ynet. Academics have led the international delegitimization campaign against Israel; with the help of the law, academics and others are leading the fight against it.  
Egypt's Israel Obsession Eric Trager, New Republic. Egyptians hate Israel for their own reasons, which have nothing to do with the Palestinian cause.
Berlin and Jerusalem Benjamin Weinthal, Jerusalem Post. Relations between Germany and Israel are too important for either side to become even an inch less close to the other; interview with Melody Sucharewicz.
An Old Hatred Returns Christopher Caldwell, Standpoint. The demon of anti-Semitism has managed to reenter European life through the back door, in the name not of racism but of anti-racism.
Anti-Semitism=Anti-Peace David Patterson, Middle East Quarterly. The greatest obstacle to peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians is almost never mentioned in media accounts: virulent, jihadist hatred of Jews.
Mr. Abbas, Call Your Lawyer Elliott Abrams, Council on Foreign Relations. In making a bid for statehood, the Palestinian Authority is disregarding the counsel of some of its most venerable strategists.    
Céline the Inescapable Benjamin Ivry, Forward. A permanent and, by some, celebrated presence on the French literary landscape, Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) incarnates for many others the epitome of rabid anti-Semitic bigotry.