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Yair Lapid’s Religion Yair Lapid’s Religion
Tuesday, February 19, 2013 by Elli Fischer | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

In a speech to haredi students last year, Yair Lapid advocated a shared public sphere in Israel that is neutral on questions of religion.  Does he now have the chance to implement his vision?
A Pillar with a Past A Pillar with a Past
Tuesday, January 8, 2013 by Lawrence Grossman | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Gil S. Perl’s The Pillar of Volozhin sheds light on the Netziv, one of Lithuanian Jewry's greatest leaders, whose own intellectual development is reflected throughout the yeshiva world today.
Where Did the Gaon Go? Where Did the Gaon Go?
Tuesday, December 18, 2012 by Lawrence Grossman | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Eliyahu Stern's new book portrays the Vilna Gaon as Eastern Europe's Moses Mendelssohn.  But can the ascetic, who backed the persecution of Hasidim, seriously be associated with individualism and democracy?
The Whole Body The Whole Body
Monday, December 17, 2012 by Viva Hammer | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

My rabbinic father-in-law and my lay leader mother agree on one thing: no body piercing.  Ears, nose, and bellybutton, all are sacred property on loan from God.
Yeshiva Revolution Yeshiva Revolution
Friday, September 7, 2012 by Yoel Finkelman | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Shaul Stampfer, one of Israel's foremost experts on Eastern European Jewry, is the most unlikely of iconoclasts.  A thin, quiet, unassuming man, he gives the impression that he would have been happy as a simple melamed (elementary school teacher) in the shtetls he describes.
Spinoza in Shtreimels Spinoza in Shtreimels
Tuesday, September 4, 2012 by Carlos Fraenkel | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Philosophy professor Carlos Fraenkel wrote that “the cultural relativism that often underlies Western multicultural agendas [is] a much greater obstacle to a culture of debate than religion.”  Today, in an exclusive preview from the Jewish Review of Books, Fraenkel relates how his theory fared among a group of Hasidim.
Englishing the Talmud Englishing the Talmud
Tuesday, June 26, 2012 by Yehudah Mirsky | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

According to a rabbinic tradition recorded in the Talmud (Shabbat 12b), God’s angels do not understand the Aramaic language in which the Talmud itself is mainly composed. As many a modern reader can testify, they’re hardly alone.
Tradition and Its Discontents Tradition and Its Discontents
Wednesday, July 7, 2010 by Yehudah Mirsky | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Judaism teaches the unity of body and soul. The soul has received most of the ink, but in recent decades historians have made an effort to give the body its say by uncovering and interpreting the material circumstances that, together with the learning and the spirituality, have comprised the weave of Jewish life. Prominent among these historians is the Hebrew University's Shaul Stampfer, whose new book, Families, Rabbis, and Education, explores the diverse currents coursing through the nineteenth-century Jewish heartlands of Eastern Europe.
Editors' Picks
The Post-Yeshiva Synagogue Yonatan Kaganoff, Torah Musings. In American Orthodoxy, a fair number of synagogues have shifted from being places for whole families to gather to becoming places for men to pray and, especially, to study.
Draft Priorities Aharon Lichtenstein, Pages of Faith. "I think there’s a legitimate basis for having a certain number of people, who contribute in a meaningful way to the discourse of the beit midrash, who are exempt from army service."
Milton's Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein, Jewish Week. "The role of religious leaders is, in a paraphrase of Matthew Arnold’s description of Edmund Burke, to saturate politics with Torah thought, orientation, and commitment." (Interview by Eugene Korn)
The Silent Yeshiva Deborah Fineblum Raub, JNS. Ma’aseh Nissim, Israel’s first yeshiva for the deaf, has not only tailored Talmud study to the needs of students who cannot hear, but also brought sign language into the ultra-Orthodox world.
“Yeshiva Boys” Margot Lurie, Commentary. The long title poem of David Lehman's new collection is a hallmark of a varied literary career, and a stunning achievement.