In God They Trust?

Stick an average alumnus of the Israeli public school system into a synagogue during morning prayers, and chances are they would be bewildered. Even if they could recollect an arid Bible class they had to endure long ago, what good would it do them? They'd still be lost.

A Portrait of Israeli Jews  Asher Arian, Ayala Keissar-Sugarmen,  Avi Chai and Israel Democracy Institute.  Most Israeli Jews feel a sense of affinity—variously defined—to their country and the Jewish people. (PDF)  SAVE

A Jewish Public School  Ben Hartman,  Jerusalem Post.  Parents in Ra'anana, a middle class Israeli town, successfully lobby for a "pluralist, traditional public school." It only took 14 years.  SAVE

Returning to God  Haim Shine,  Israel Hayom.  Some of Israel's founders may have envisioned Jews without God, but their descendants are coming home in droves.  SAVE

SAVE "In God They Trust?"

From New Year to Arbor Day

The holiday of Tu Bishvat ("the fifteenth of Shvat") falls this year on Wednesday, February 8. What are its origins, and when and why did it become incorporated into the calendar as the Jewish "Arbor Day"?

When Have "Most of the Rains Passed"?  Yair Goldreich,  Bar-Ilan University.  Analyzing the climatic factors that help determine the date of Tu Bishvat.  SAVE

SAVE "From New Year to Arbor Day"

The Pale God

Imagine God not as a benign force infusing the universe with love and sustaining it with mercy, and not as a stern judge smiting sinners from on high with his cosmic zap-gun, but as a grandfatherly figure, kind but, truth be told, somewhat out of it, sitting in a corner, tolerant of the various paths his children have chosen.

A Portrait of Israeli Jewry  Asher Arian, Ayala Keissar-Sugarmen,  Avi Chai Foundation.  A comprehensive study of religious behavior among Israeli Jews, worshiping Spinoza's pale God. (PDF)  SAVE

Secularism and Its Discontents  Yehudah Mirsky,  Jewish Ideas Daily.  A dependence on the idea of Jewish "tradition" has been a hallmark of Jewish secularists and proto-secularists for nine centuries or so.  SAVE

Spinoza: A Life  Steven Nadler,  Cambridge University Press.  The first complete biography of Spinoza in any language—and a portrait of 17th-century Jewish Amsterdam.  SAVE

Gender Trouble  Yehudah Mirsky,  Jewish Ideas Daily.  Israel's secularists have their work cut out for them in implementing their vision of a moderate, state-friendly Judaism.  SAVE

SAVE "The Pale God"

Siren Songs

"For your voice is sweet and your appearance pleasant" (Song of Songs 2:14). On the basis of this verse, Jewish law prohibits a man's listening to kol ishah, a woman's voice in song. Unlikely as it may seem, this prohibition has sparked a controversy that could shake the foundations of Israel's self-defense and self-definition.

Kol Ishah Reviewed  Yehuda Henkin,  Urim Publications.  Thirty years ago, Saul Berman wrote an influential and relatively liberal interpretation of the kol ishah prohibition. But there has been an answer. (PDF)  SAVE

Sad Sexual Obsessions  Eric H. Yoffie,  Jerusalem Post.  Does the Israeli rabbinate's increasing focus on gender issues have an unattractive psychological component?  SAVE

Religion and the IDF  Aryeh Tepper,  Jewish Ideas Daily.  Almost a third of the officers in Israel's army now wear kippot. Is the IDF about to become the long arm of rabbinic law?  SAVE

Voice of a Woman  Shmuel Rosner,  New York Times.  If Orthodox Jews believe they are forbidden by law to hear a woman sing, how far should the Israeli military go to facilitate their observance?  SAVE

Gender Trouble  Yehudah Mirsky,  Jewish Ideas Daily.  For "Hardalim," the objections to women's singing go beyond modesty and gender separation; they are also a matter of national identity.  SAVE

SAVE "Siren Songs"