Shlomo Goren, 1949.

The Warrior Rabbi

Praise of military virtue, prominent in the Bible, is almost non-existent in the Talmud, which, in the aftermath of the destruction of the Temple and the exile of the Jews by the Romans, either ignores wartime feats or re-interprets them as allegories of intellectual or spiritual prowess. The Talmud's relative silence on the subject would prove enduring. Until the second half of the 20th century, with few exceptions, military virtue was consistently depreciated in traditional Jewish thought.

A Scholar on the Battlefield  Arye Edrei,  Theoretical Inquiries in Law.  With a minimum of material at his disposal, Shlomo Goren single-handedly shaped a compelling vision of Jewish military ethics.  SAVE

Sounding the Great Shofar  IsraCast.  June 7, 1967: Rabbi Shlomo Goren blows the shofar and recites the prayer for fallen soldiers moments after Israeli forces conquered the Western Wall. (Video.)  SAVE

Rav Ovadia

One of the more outsized personalities in Israel's history is Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the longtime head of the Shas political party, who has just marked his ninetieth birthday.  The foreign public knows of him, vaguely, as a right-wing fanatic. But the truth and perhaps the tragedy of the man are far more complicated and fascinating.

A Breakthrough Move?  Matthew Wagner,  Jerusalem Post.  Entrance into the World Zionist Organization may herald Shas's normalization, or the WZO's weakening.   SAVE

From the Shop to the Top  Benjamin Lau,  Haaretz.  A journey from the family grocery store to the summit of religious and political leadership.   SAVE

Women and the Sephardi Way  Ariel Picard,  Jewish Women's Archive.  On issues from wearing trousers to learning Torah, relative leniency is the rule.    SAVE

Who is Rabbi Ovadia  Marc B. Shapiro,  Meorot.  Assessing the personality, and the perspective, of an ultra-Orthodox revolutionary.  SAVE

Religion and the IDF

Profound changes have been occurring in the officer ranks of the Israel Defense Force, and not everybody is happy about them; some, in fact, are downright alarmed. The figures tell the story: back in 1990, kippah-wearing soldiers from the country's "national-religious" community—that is, religious Jews distinguished by their deep attachment to Zionism, Israeli nationalism, and, in many cases, the settlement enterprise—comprised a mere 2.5 percent of graduates from the army's course for infantry officers. In 2007, the figure peaked at more than 31 percent, a number totally out of proportion with the number of religious-national soldiers serving in IDF infantry units. Similar changes are said to be happening in elite units and among senior staff.

An Army of Settlers?  Amos Harel,  Haaretz.  Warning: when the time comes for the next disengagement, Israel may no longer be able to rely on the IDF to do the job.  SAVE

The Hesder Way  Aharon Lichtenstein,  Yeshivat Har Etzion.  Selections from an essay delineating the ideology of Hesder yeshivas. (PDF)  SAVE

Dilemmas of Military Service  Stuart A. Cohen,  Torah u-Madda Journal.  While the IDF welcomes soldiers who wish to maintain a traditional way of life, the encounter can be difficult.  (PDF)  SAVE

Ramadan

Three near-certainties accompany the Muslim holy month of Ramadan: in Islamic countries, the stock market climbs; in Jerusalem, the already amplified pre-dawn adhān, or call to prayer, becomes even more piercing than usual; and there is a steep rise in Muslim bloodletting. 

What Terrorists Forget  Syafiq Basri Assegaf,  Jakarta Globe.  Muslims all over the world understand that they must not harm anyone.  SAVE

What is Moderate Islam?  Wall Street Journal.  In a symposium sparked by the debate over a proposed mosque at Ground Zero, six leading thinkers consider the nature of Islam.  SAVE

Moderate Muslims are Not the Answer  Reuel Marc Gerecht,  New Republic.  Dissidents, even outspoken ones, are too far from the furnace to be an essential element in the battle against jihadism; other moderating forces count more.  SAVE

Kibbutz, Gush Etzion, 1945

The Romance of Gush Etzion

The modern return of the Jewish people to their homeland succeeded thanks to the extraordinary tenacity of pioneering individuals who, in a dangerous environment, created new communities from scratch. One such community, or rather series of communities, is the Etzion district—in Hebrew, Gush Etzion—located along the ancient mountain route between Jerusalem and Hebron. The first three communities built by Jewish settlers were completely destroyed by Arabs. The fourth still stands today.

The Death and Rebirth of Kfar Etzion  Yair Sheleg,  Haaretz.  A (Hebrew-language) book attempts to come to grips with the story of the orphaned children of Etzion Village.  SAVE

An Ideal Leader  Alan Brill,  Edah Journal.  Aharon Lichtenstein's essays offer a consistent vision of life reflecting their author's lifelong dedication to Torah study as an expression of the Divine.  SAVE

Remembering the Catastrophe  Aljazeera Magazine.  International peacemakers speak of including parts of the Gush Etzion settlement bloc in an agreement, but the Arab press routinely brands all settlers and settlements as illegal.  SAVE