Gershom Scholem, 30 Years On

Thirty years after his death at age 84, Gershom Scholem casts a long shadow. The field he created, the modern study of Jewish mysticism, has grown beyond him, yet his work remains the indispensable foundation.

The Gershom Scholem Library  National Library of Israel.  The library that Scholem built—based on his personal collection, devoted to Kabbalah, Hasidism, and Jewish mysticism, and the only one of its kind in the world.  SAVE

Shamanic Trance in Modern Kabbalah  Jonathan Garb,  University of Chicago Press.  Kabbalists, says Garb, developed physical and mental methods to induce trance states, visions of heavenly mountains, and transformations into animals or bodies of light.  SAVE

Paths of Light  Jonatan Meir,  Ben Zvi Institute.  Though Scholem wrote in the early 20th century that Kabbalah was dying, it gave off a great deal of light (Hebrew).  SAVE

Studies in East European Jewish Mysticism and Hasidism  Joseph Weiss,  Littman.  The studies of Scholem's brilliant, enigmatic student Joseph Weiss, written before his untimely death in 1969, are still quoted in every serious study of Hasidism.  SAVE

Between New York and Jerusalem  Steven E. Aschheim,  Jerusalem Review of Books.  On the friendship between Scholem and Hannah Arendt, and the decade-long antagonistic correspondence that brought it to an end.  SAVE

Jews and Their Historians  Yehudah Mirsky,  Jewish Ideas Daily.  One measure of Zionism's success would be the willingness of Israeli historians, especially the greatest of them—Jacob Katz and Gershom Scholem—to write unapologetically and critically about Jewish communal life, religious tradition, and even the shortcomings of Jewish academic scholarship itself.  SAVE

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A Vote Not Cast

When my Labor Zionist cousins made aliyah from New York City in the 1950s to an agricultural moshav outside Raanana they cast off comfort, kin, and familiarity for the yoke of pioneering Zionism. It was inevitable that they'd lose touch with the Brooklyn Dodgers, Joe DiMaggio's love life, and the fate of the Third Avenue El.

Israelis Still  Yogev Karasenty,  JPPI.  After weighing four options, a think tank recommends granting Israelis living abroad the right of absentee voting in Knesset elections under prescribed conditions. (PDF)  SAVE

Right-Wing Plot  Sefi Rachlevsky,  Haaretz.  Benjamin Netanyahu and his Orthodox-oriented coalition is prepared to use anti-Zionist and cynical support from abroad to re-shape Israel's political system.  SAVE

Be Normal!  Moshe Arens,  Haaretz.  A carefully crafted law to allow soldiers, tourists, El Al crews, students, professors, and other bona fide Israelis to vote while overseas on election day makes obvious sense.  SAVE

No Tax, No Vote  Shlomo Avineri,  Haaretz.  Israelis living abroad do not get to vote. Keep it that way, writes the dean of Israeli political scientists.  SAVE

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Find, Fix, Finish

What is the threat? Al-Qaeda? "Terrorism"? "Violent religious extremism"? Israeli analysts call it "global jihad," but U.S. leadership has carefully circumscribed it as "al-Qaeda" or, even more narrowly, personified it as Osama bin Laden and his minions, hijackers of planes and Islam.

Nuremberg Diary  G.M. Gilbert,  Farrar, Straus and Giroux.  A first-hand account, by a Nuremburg prison psychologist, of the trials that attempted to bring international law to bear on the crimes committed by the Nazi leadership.  SAVE

Guantanamo Documents Revive Debate  Anne E. Kornblut,  Washington Post.  New documents about the detainees are released—and each side in the debate about closing the base claims ammunition for its own position.  SAVE

Police Powers in New York  New York Times.  New York's mayor calls the city's surveillance legal. But the Times has added it to the list of police practices that have "virtually eliminated the presumption of innocence."  SAVE

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The Move that Dare Not Speak Its Name

Recent years have seen a flurry of reports, studies, and worried discussions about strengthening Diaspora Jewry's ties to Israel. But what about strengthening the ties to Israel—or, for that matter, to the Diaspora—of the growing numbers of Israelis who live abroad?

Strengthening Jewish-Israeli Identity of Israelis Abroad  Yogev Karasenty,  Jewish People Policy Institute.  The JPPI report asserts that Israeli government actions can significantly affect the attachment of expatriate Israelis to their home country.  SAVE

The Israeli Diaspora as a Catalyst for Jewish Peoplehood  Reut Institute.  The Reut Institute report argues that many hands besides those of the Israeli government hold the key to Israeli expatriate integration.  SAVE

Mass Jewish Migration Database  Gur Alroey,  University of Haifa.  A massive record of the Jews who emigrated from the Pale of Settlement of the Russian Empire before World War I.  SAVE

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Going the Distance

Israel is a nation-state. In contrast, Diaspora Jewry—in particular, American Jewry—is a network of voluntary communities, constituting not just different structures but different life-worlds. While it is usually taken for granted that nation-states and their respective diasporas will grow apart, with Jews the issue is hotly debated.

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