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Education History


Anti-Semitism and Man at Yale Anti-Semitism and Man at Yale
Monday, June 13, 2011 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

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.
American Orthodoxy and Its Discontents American Orthodoxy and Its Discontents
Friday, May 27, 2011 by Lawrence Grossman | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

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.
Israel and Western Guilt Israel and Western Guilt
Friday, May 20, 2011 by Aryeh Tepper | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

"Confront Your Privilege." So reads a "subtly coercive" sign on display at tony American liberal-arts colleges. Why coercive? Because, as Wilfred McClay explains in an illuminating recent essay in First Things, what such signs are really telling the students is, "Feel Guilty."
Holocaust without End Holocaust without End
Wednesday, May 18, 2011 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Sixty-six years after the end of World War II, the Holocaust remains one of the central puzzles of human history. For Jews, the imperative is clear: to remember and to encourage others to remember. But remember what? Has the earnest dedication of both Jews and non-Jews to seek the meaning of the event and absorb its lessons ended by emptying it of meaning and lessons alike?
Messianic Temptations Messianic Temptations
Thursday, April 7, 2011 by Yehudah Mirsky | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

The downfall of Moshe Katsav, the former president of Israel recently convicted and sentenced on a rape charge, is a many-sided episode—involving his crimes, the media circus around the judicial proceedings against him, and the private and public meanings of his disgrace.
Jewish Studies in Decline? Jewish Studies in Decline?
Monday, March 28, 2011 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Reports prepared recently for Israel's Council of Higher Education have brought despairing news about the condition of the humanities in the country's universities. Especially dispiriting is the report on Jewish studies, once the crowning glory of Israel's flagship Hebrew University—and, in the report's inadvertently nostalgic words, "an investment in the nurturing of the deep spiritual and cultural structures of Israeli public and private life." That investment has been producing ever smaller returns.
The Virtuoso of Judaism The Virtuoso of Judaism
Thursday, March 3, 2011 by Yehudah Mirsky | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Religious virtuosity comes in many forms. One of them is the ability to reconcile seeming irreconcilables, like faith and freedom, piety and intellect, revelation and science. The dream of synthesis has lured many in the past two centuries. One who seemed to live it was Joseph B. Soloveitchik.
Follow the Money Follow the Money
Wednesday, March 2, 2011 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

The prestigious London School of Economics (LSE) is shocked—shocked—to discover that Muammar Qaddafi is a very bad man. So the once venerable institution is diverting some of the $2.5 million pledged through Qaddafi's son Saif al-Islam into a scholarship fund for Libyan students.
Jewish-Christian Dialogue Today Jewish-Christian Dialogue Today
Monday, February 21, 2011 by Yehudah Mirsky | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

How do today's Jews and Christians encounter one another? The most obvious way is in the countless interactions of Jewish and Christian colleagues and acquaintances in a host of daily settings, including exchanges on their respective religious attitudes and experiences.
In the Portable Homeland In the Portable Homeland
Wednesday, December 29, 2010 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Heinrich Heine described the Bible as the Jews' portable homeland. Both it and its various and proliferating extensions through history have been the objects of intense exploration by modern Jewish scholars. What do the numerous books and articles published by these scholars have to tell us, and how much of their scholarship is relevant to daily life, or of interest beyond the circle of their fellow academics?
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Editors' Picks
Talmud and Technology Alan Jacobs, Atlantic. Although the challenges posed by the Internet are serious, Jews have long disputed how to deal with new technology—and faced similar dilemmas with the printing press.
Transit of Venus Jeremy Brown, Rationalist Judaism. Three rabbinic responsa to the rare astronomical phenomenon visible today, and what it means for a Copernican—and a Jewish—world view.
The Macaronic Talmud Yair Furstenberg, Talmud Blog. The rabbis of the Talmud were not only exposed to Greek, but proficient enough to cunningly manipulate the language with wordplay and puns.
True Torah, True Science Seth Kadish, Rationalist Judaiam. Two strikingly different medieval paradigms show that when facing apparent conflicts between science and Torah, the worst possible solution is to sanitize the former or censor the latter.
Sorrow in the Talmud Marc Bregman, H-Net. Counterintuitively, traditional Jewish teaching inculcated right behavior by relating how even the greatest leaders sometimes failed to behave according to their own principles.
The Practice of Musar Geoffrey Claussen, Conservative Judaism. The Conservative movement likes to see itself as intellectual one. But it might have something to learn from a 19th-century movement of strenuous moral development.
Remembering Too Well? Joshua Hammerman, Times of Israel. The importance of fostering a Jewish identity that values "God of Sinai" over "God of Auschwitz."
Learn Hebrew! David Hazony, Forward. The cultural gulf between Israel and the Diaspora can be bridged—but only if American Jews decide they want to bridge it.
A Vast Right-Wing Jewish Conspiracy? Rafael Medoff, Jerusalem Post. Hearing a prominent Jewish historian claim that criticism of FDR's inaction during the Holocaust is the handiwork of disgruntled Likudniks, a leftist blogger took it upon himself to prove her wrong.
Ghetto Seminaries Fred MacDowell, On the Main Line. No fooling: On April 1, 1906, The New-York Tribune published a long article about the "Jewish boys who risk health by long study in foul rooms"—including the heder that would become Yeshiva University.