Photo by Natalie Weinberg.

Rosh Hashanah with the Chief Rabbi

Ten years ago, the first day of Rosh Hashanah—the two-day Jewish New Year—fell on September 18. That was one week after September 11, 2001, when almost 3,000 people were killed by Muslim terrorists. On that Rosh Hashanah, rabbis did not lack for sermon topics.

Endless Devotion  Hillel Halkin,  Jewish Review of Books.  Prayer, says Sacks, is the "language of the soul in conversation with God."  But the struggle to keep it from becoming routine is intrinsic to every religion in which prayer is a regular duty.  SAVE

The Chief Rabbi's Achievement  David Wolpe,  Jewish Review of Books.  Sacks has a gift for providing plausible, if not entirely sufficient, interpretations of the most problematic questions of theology.  SAVE

Where Faith is Weak, Life is Weak  Jonathan Sacks,  Jewish Chronicle.  Intermarriage, assimilation, and vulnerability are not the causes but the symptoms of a transcendent malaise affecting a people once aflame with devotion.  SAVE

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International Yiddish Theater Festival.

Montreal, a Love Story

The second International Yiddish Theater Festival, an elaborate ten-day fete whose program ranges from carnavalesque performances to academic symposia, just wrapped up last week in Montreal. What is especially surprising about this celebration is that Montreal is a city with a Jewish population of less than 80,000.

Growing Up Jewish in Montreal  Lois Dubin, Jack Kugelmass, Allan Nadler, Ruth R. Wisse,  Yeshiva University Museum.  Four scholars discuss their distinct and shared educational, religious, communal, and cultural experiences of Montreal. (Video)  SAVE

Montreal’s Hebrew Melodies  Allan Nadler,  YouTube.  A tour of the schools and synagogues of Montreal, with a focus on the city's rich cantorial tradition. (Video)  SAVE

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Hebrew School

Samson Benderly, one might say, had crusading in his blood. A direct descendant of Jacob Emden, the zealous 18th-century European battler against Sabbateanism, he spent his youth in Palestine before coming to the United States in 1898 with the aim of becoming a physician.

An Educational Miracle  New York Times.  From tuition to sanitation to acculturation, Benderly's Bureau of Jewish Education managed a "unique logistical feat." (January 25, 1914)  SAVE

Romancing the Heder  Walter I. Ackerman,  Judaism.  The significance that Benderly attributed to childhood is an Americanization at odds with the traditional center of gravity in Jewish education: the yeshiva. (PDF, 1975)  SAVE

A “Benderly Boy” Named Rebecca  Shuly Rubin Schwartz,  American Jewish Archives Journal.  One of the original members of Benderly's maverick group became the first professional woman in Jewish education.  SAVE

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Anti-Semitism and Man at Yale

The modern university is no longer made up simply of departments and regular professors teaching students. Ancillary centers, programs, and initiatives proliferate, undertaking research on every conceivable topic. The fates of such entities rarely make the New York Post. But anti-Semitism is not a normal subject.

Some of Our Best Friends Are Jews  Ben Cohen,  Pajamas Media.  To an inquiry about the termination of YIISA, a Yale spokesman responded by protesting that the university "has long been a leader in Judaic research, teaching, and collections."  SAVE

Some Day, Yale’s Prince Will Come  Martin Kramer,  Sandbox.  What prompted Yale's administration to intervene and force changes in a scholarly book on the Danish-cartoon controversy?  SAVE

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American Orthodoxy and Its Discontents

A "case study in institutional decay": that description of Orthodox Judaism in America was offered in 1955 by the late sociologist Marshall Sklare. It has long since entered the gallery of scholarly misjudgments, acknowledged as such by Sklare when events turned out to belie his assessment.

American Orthodoxy Turns Right  Chaim I. Waxman,  Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.  In a development with significant consequences for the future of Orthodox Judaism, sizable numbers have been adopting a more insular stance. (1998)  SAVE

Rupture and Reconstruction  Haym Soloveitchik,  Tradition.  Reflections on the momentous shift within the Orthodox community from a traditional culture, in which children learn from their parents and their community, to a book-centered culture, in which authority resides in texts.  SAVE

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