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Highlights of 2011:Part II
Friday, December 30, 2011 | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Part II of our round-up of the past year's most popular features on Jewish Ideas Daily. (Part I is here.)
The First War of National LiberationWednesday, December 21, 2011 by Diana Muir Appelbaum | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
This is the 2,179th anniversary of the world's first war of national liberation. There have been many since. To a surprising extent, such wars have followed the pattern first established by the Maccabees. They, like later heads of independence movements, were leaders of a people conquered and occupied by a great empire.
The Trouble with HitchensFriday, December 16, 2011 by Benjamin Kerstein | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
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.
A Humanist Bible?Monday, December 12, 2011 by Armin Rosen | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
According to Jewish tradition, the Torah was delivered to Moses by God on Mount Sinai thousands of years ago. A.C. Grayling's The Good Book claims humbler origins. That text was given to us by an English philosophy professor this past summer.
From Bucharest to JerusalemFriday, December 2, 2011 by Elliot Jager | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
The cabinet of Romania headed by Prime Minister Emil Boc came to Jerusalem on November 24 to hold a joint session with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government. Boc spoke eloquently of the two countries' common security concerns and shared views on peace and security.
Is Judaism a Religion?Tuesday, November 29, 2011 by Lawrence Grossman | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
There is no end to the conundrums involved in defining what it means to be a Jew. Must a Jew be someone who believes in the Jewish religion, in the way a Christian believes in Christianity or a Muslim in Islam? That can't be the case, since many devoted Jews are atheists.
In the Jewish Dark ContinentTuesday, November 22, 2011 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Most American Jews descend from ancestors who resided in the Pale of Settlement, the territory from the Black Sea to the Baltic in which Jews were confined by the Czars. A new book describes one effort to chart that territory.
On the Road AgainWednesday, November 16, 2011 by Diana Muir Appelbaum | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
The chronically tense relations between the Israeli government and Bedouins in the Negev—where unrecognized villages are built, razed, and built again—are certain to grow even more tense with the Israeli Cabinet's recent approval of a plan that will recognize about half these villages but demolish the other half.
The Holy Land of EnglandThursday, November 10, 2011 by Liam Hoare | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
The King James Bible, along with the Book of Common Prayer, Shakespeare, and Milton, transformed the English language, introducing a vibrant lexicon that is used to this day. It also fused biblical mythology with concepts of English national identity.
Among the TruthersWednesday, November 9, 2011 by James Kirchick | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Do we live in the age of conspiracy? In April, after repeated prodding by then-Presidential candidate Donald Trump, Barack Obama felt compelled to release his "long form" birth certificate to dispel rumors that that he was not a natural-born U.S. citizen.
Editors' Picks
S/Z Benjamin Ivry, Forward. Was Stefan Zweig's habit of sending each of his new books to Sigmund Freud an amicable gesture or an invitation to diagnose and cure?
The Benefactors of Breslau Malgorzata Stolarska-Fronia, H-Net. A new book cataloging Jewish welfare institutions in Breslau, Germany (now Poland) shows how philanthropy was central to the cultural exchange that followed the Emancipation.
Dolphins from Deutschland Ronen Bergman, Spiegel. Angela Merkel thought Israel was going to freeze settlements in return for getting German nuclear-capable submarines. There's been no freeze, but Germany is sending the subs anyway.
Intellectual Guilt Jonathan S. Tobin, Contentions. The spate of attacks on French Jews since the Toulouse massacre flows from not just the anti-Semitism of Arab leaders but its legitimation by the European intelligentsia.
Bild-ing Zion Igal Avidan, Times of Israel. A new Frankfurt exhibition asks, why did Axel Springer, Christian publisher of the German newspaper Bild, openly take sides with the Jewish people after World War II?
A Jewish Esperanto? Philologos, Forward. According to two encyclopedias, out of an estimated 16 million Jews in the world in 1939, 11 million were Yiddish speakers. But that figure doesn't stand up to closer inspection.
Defender of the Faiths Jonathan Sacks, London Times. While committed to defending the Anglican faith, Queen Elizabeth II has also played a significant role in the transformation of Britain into a multi-ethnic, multi-faith society.
Good Queen Bless Jonathan Fishburn, Fishburn Books. While Jews have long prayed for the welfare of their rulers, the upcoming Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II calls for special liturgical compositions. (PDF)
Britain's Post-War Pogrom Daniel Trilling, New Statesman. The deaths of two British soldiers at the hands of the Irgun in 1947 sparked the most widespread violence against Jews ever in the UK. But no sooner did it happen than it was forgotten.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us? AlphaGalileo Foundation. The discovery of a Hebrew inscription from the fourth century in Portugal is not only the earliest evidence of Jews in Iberia, but also testifies to a close relationship between Jews and Romans.