Among the Literati

 

Some days, I can't help thinking back 25 years to my high-school French course, which is where I first encountered the concept of the juste milieu—the happy medium—and the difficulty of achieving it. Why is the happy medium so elusive? Why do I more often feel caught betwixt and between or, even among my fellow Jewish-American writers, alone?

Liberalism and Literary Criticism  Seth Mandel,  Contentions.  Jewish pro-Israel leftists are viscerally unwanted by their peers, who try desperately to strip figures like Leon Wieseltier and David Grossman of their identities.  SAVE

Occupy Wall Street, Not Palestine  Ben Lorber,  Palestine Chronicle.  The writer complains that as "pro-Palestinian discourse begins to make itself heard" in the OWS movement, "right-wing organizations" are denouncing it as anti-Semitic.  SAVE

Write On for Israel  writeonforisrael.org.  The advocacy journalism program that trains high school students in pro-Israel writing, speaking, and broadcasting.  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"

The Trouble with Hitchens

 

When Christopher Hitchens passed away yesterday at the age of 62, the encomia started pouring in almost immediately. Most of this praise is deserved, as the acumen of Hitchens's muscular criticism and the wit of his ripostes will be with us for a long time to come.

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Are Young Rabbis Turning on Israel?

 

For all the theological, ritualistic, and institutional differences separating the Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform movements, what distinguishes the groups in the minds of many ordinary American Jews comes down to branding.

Are Young Rabbis Turning on Israel?  Daniel Gordis,  Commentary.  That some rabbinical students (and their elders) are turning against the Jewish state is a deeply distressing fact; the question is why.  SAVE

Not Lost, Just Left  Josh Nathan-Kazis,  Forward.  JTS chancellor Arnold Eisen says his seminary's survey has allayed his concerns that his students are becoming anti-Israel.  SAVE

Jokes My Grandfather Told Me  Daniel Gordis,  Jerusalem Post.  Gordis responds that the recent JTS study does not disprove but actually confirms his thesis that non-Orthodox rabbis have taken a universalist turn.  SAVE

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Insight & Analysis

Should We Worry about Adelson?  Ira Sharkansky.  Jerusalem Post.  Sheldon Adelson almost single-handedly kept Newt Gingrich's candidacy alive. Maybe that's bad for the Jews—or maybe Adelson is just providing some ideological balance to George Soros.  SAVE

Are Jews Trending Republican?  Shmuel Rosner.  Jewish Journal.  Conservatives have often tried to convince the public that a new wave of Jewish Republicans was just around the corner. So far, they've only been disappointed—but should now watch the independents.  SAVE

Who's on First?  James Kirchick.  Haaretz.  So-called progressives should stop mimicking the far Right and refrain from using terms like "Israel-firster" that question the allegiance of their fellow Americans.  SAVE

Silent Majority  Matthew Ackerman.  Contentions.  Everyone says young American Jews are increasingly hostile to Israel. But is it true? A new poll cautions us not to mistake a vocal minority for the majority.  SAVE

Radical Orthodoxy  Daniel Boyarin.  Book of Doctrines and Opinions.  The Talmud scholar imagines a religious practice, "free of the ethnocentrism and even racism that characterizes so much of contemporary orthodox language . . . that would authentically enable my own radical political commitments." (Interview with Alan Brill).  SAVE

Obama's Jewish Problem  Allison Hoffman.  Tablet.  The core of the Obama campaign's play for Jewish votes is simple: Overwhelm what the Obama camp sees as Republicans' bald emotionalism on Israel with a flood of facts and figures. Will it work?.  SAVE

Blaming the Jews—Again  Elliott Abrams.  Weekly Standard.  It would be Jewish journalists, of course, who have come up with the smartest ways to package anti-Jewish sentiment for a U.S. audience in the presidential election season.  SAVE

Voices & Arguments

Vital Signs: Torah and Service

 

Jack Wertheimer

As if from a fantastical time machine, some 300 youngsters disembark in the woods of western Pennsylvania to find themselves at the building site of King Solomon's temple in Jerusalem. In a quick briefing they are introduced to the biblical passages describing the construction project, invited to imagine the challenges confronting the ancient builders—how to move and hoist heavy loads of quarried stone, how to shape metal into giant candelabra—and then immediately drafted into the mammoth task. Only when their labors are complete, two and a half hours later, do they begin the mundane assignment of meeting their counselors and locating their bunks.

Continue Reading "Vital Signs: Torah and Service"  Jack Wertheimer,  Jewish Ideas Daily.  SAVE

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Voices & Arguments

Vital Signs: Torah and Service

 

Jack Wertheimer

As if from a fantastical time machine, some 300 youngsters disembark in the woods of western Pennsylvania to find themselves at the building site of King Solomon's temple in Jerusalem. In a quick briefing they are introduced to the biblical passages describing the construction project, invited to imagine the challenges confronting the ancient builders—how to move and hoist heavy loads of quarried stone, how to shape metal into giant candelabra—and then immediately drafted into the mammoth task. Only when their labors are complete, two and a half hours later, do they begin the mundane assignment of meeting their counselors and locating their bunks.

Continue Reading "Vital Signs: Torah and Service"  Jack Wertheimer,  Jewish Ideas Daily.  SAVE

SAVE "Vital Signs: Torah and Service"

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