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

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Highlights of 2011:
Part II

Part II of our round-up of the past year's most popular features on Jewish Ideas Daily. (Part I is here.)

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Part II"

Thanksgiving: A Jewish Holiday After All

In 1789, President George Washington issued a proclamation recommending that Thursday November 26th of that year be devoted "to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be." 

A Prayer for America  David De Sola Pool,  Union of Sephardic Congregations.  Scant months after the end of World War II, a Thanksgiving Day liturgy was compiled by the rabbi of New York's Spanish-Portuguese Synagogue. (1945, PDF)  SAVE

An American Yom Tov  Dennis Prager,  Forward.  It says an immense amount about America that it long ago created a national holiday just for the purpose of giving thanks—one which American Jews should celebrate with particular enthusiasm.  SAVE

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The Great Orthodox Comeback

The resurgence of Orthodoxy may be the most profound, and is certainly the most surprising, transformation of Judaism in the past 60 years. 

Avraham Yeshayahu Karelitz  Benjamin Brown,  YIVO Encyclopedia.  How, after spending the first 55 years of his life as an unknown rabbi in Lithuania, the Hazon Ish came to be regarded as the successor to the slain religious authorities of Eastern Europe.  SAVE

Zionism and the Middle Path  Peggy Cidor,  Jerusalem Post.  Remaining faithful to the Hazon Ish's "middle path," many Haredim observe Israel's Independence Day as a celebration—but not a holiday.  SAVE

A Sabbath Chicken  Curt Leviant,  Jewish Review of Books.  Remembered by his student Chaim Grade, the Hazon Ish was as compassionate as he was nearsighted.  SAVE

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