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Religious Life


Halakhah for Americans Halakhah for Americans
Friday, March 18, 2011 by Elli Fischer | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Asked in a 1975 New York Times interview how he had acquired his standing as America's most trusted authority in Jewish religious law (halakhah), Rabbi Moshe Feinstein (1895-1986) replied: ''If people see that one answer is good and another answer is good, gradually you will be accepted."
Toward a Pluralistic Middle East? Toward a Pluralistic Middle East?
Thursday, March 17, 2011 by Aryeh Tepper | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

As the Middle East lurches through the present confusion of civil war, revolution, and mass protest, decent people everywhere wonder about the chances of a more pluralistic and democratic order emerging. One way of measuring progress in that direction will be to track the treatment of minorities like the Berbers and the Jews.
Manger’s M’gilah, and Ours Manger’s M’gilah, and Ours
Wednesday, March 16, 2011 by Yehudah Mirsky | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Part of the strangeness of the biblical book of Esther lies, oddly, in its very familiarity. It takes place in a world where God hardly figures, where prophecy is but a memory, where lust, vanity, and arrogance call the tunes, and where flat-out redemption is too much to hope for.
Purim Puzzles Purim Puzzles
Friday, March 11, 2011 by Lawrence Grossman | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Purim, Judaism's strangest holiday (which this year falls on March 20), is prescribed by what may be the strangest book in the Hebrew Bible, the scroll (m'gilah) of Esther. Two public readings of the book, one at night and the other in the morning, tell a story of Persian palace intrigue in the fifth century B.C.E., a recitation accompanied by the holiday's decidedly unspiritual noisemaking, tippling, and masquerade.
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 Old Young Guard The Old Young Guard
Monday, March 7, 2011 by Aryeh Tepper | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

One of the most significant movements of Jewish renewal in the 20th century was Hashomer Hatzair: the Young Guard.  Founded as a youth group in Vienna in 1916, the movement set itself in opposition to what it regarded as the emaciated character of Jewish life.
Jewish Philanthropy 2.0 Jewish Philanthropy 2.0
Wednesday, February 23, 2011 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Jewish mega-donors are hardly news. It is also a commonplace that wealthy Jews allocate less than 25 percent of their giving to specifically Jewish causes. Of the two facts, the latter has understandably puzzled and frustrated fund raisers for Jewish causes. But is it really so mysterious?
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.
The Riddle of the Satmar The Riddle of the Satmar
Thursday, February 17, 2011 by Allan Nadler | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

A prospect terrifying to secular Israelis and Zionists worldwide has been the rapid growth of the Jewish state's ultra-Orthodox (haredi) community. Given the stranglehold of haredi political parties on recent coalition governments, and the encroachments by non-Zionist haredi clerics upon Israel's chief rabbinate, once religiously moderate and firmly Zionist, the fear is not entirely irrational.
Spirituality Lite Spirituality Lite
Tuesday, February 15, 2011 by Aryeh Tepper | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

A simple truth lurks behind the rise of "post-denominationalism" in Jewish religious life. It is that increasing numbers of Jews are becoming less interested in defining what Judaism means than in sampling aspects of the Jewish tradition that seem to promise spiritual vitality.
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Editors' Picks
Kosher Food for Gentiles Andrew Adam Newman, New York Times. As mainstream brands increasingly pitch to consumers who keep kosher, Manischewitz is doing the opposite: creating kosher products you can serve for Easter dinner.
The Limits of Secularism Jonathan Sacks, Standpoint. Isaiah Berlin didn't understand how the Chief Rabbi could have studied philosophy at Cambridge and Oxford and still have faith. "Isaiah," said Sacks, "if it helps, think of me as a lapsed heretic."
Go Ahead, Buy that Train Set Dennis Prager, Jewish Journal. A holiday season defense of material pleasures.
Hanukkah (from "Meditations on the Fall and Winter Holidays") Charles Reznikoff, Poems of Charles Reznikoff. Go swiftly in your chariot, my fellow Jew,you who are blessed with horses;and I will follow as best I can afoot,bringing with me perhaps a word or two.Speak your learned and witty discoursesand I will utter my word or two— not by might not by powerbut by Your Spirit, Lord.
Jewish Jamaica, Then and Now Paul Foer, eJewish Philanthropy. Jews have been in Jamaica for centuries, and a Kingston congregation has just engaged its first full-time rabbi in 40 years. He'll do services, classes, and conversions. He's also a scuba diver.
Wrong Assumptions Jack Wertheimer, Jewish Week. A new report on intermarriage provides no evidence that the supposed cold shoulder that intermarried families receive is the cause of their staggeringly high rates of non-affiliation.
Choose Your Poison Philologos, Forward. Why do some say l'chaim when blessing wine: to confirm that the drink hasn't been poisoned, to dispel grim associations, or simply to make sure that all present are ready for the blessing?     
Varieties of Religious Experience Mark Oppenheimer, New Republic. Major American politicians seem unusually promiscuous in their religious affinities, not just switching houses of worship but totally altering the substance of their faith.
Marriage and Morals Shlomo Brody, Jerusalem Post. While the Torah explicitly commands Jews to procreate, it never definitively demands marriage. That being the case, does Jewish law ever permit extramarital sex?
Faith is Not Quite the Word Martha Himmelfarb, Daily Princetonian. The scholar of religion talks about Israel, interreligious friendship, trends in American Judaism, and her own practice, including saying kaddish for her father, sociographer Milton Himmelfarb. (Interview by Robert George)