In Contemporary Issues, Education and Jewish Thought and Philosophy
On Yom Hashoa one can virtually smell the blood of the six million Jews killed, including one and a half million children. Walking through Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, I see the faces of many of them, and it is not difficult to imagine that these children could have been mine. After all, I missed the Holocaust by a hair’s breadth.
Jews in earlier centuries were never seriously involved in sport, though. This is most likely due to the historical conditions of Second Temple period. With Alexander the Great’s conquest of the land of Israel in the 4th century BCE, Hellenist culture began to infiltrate the Jewish way of life. In fact, it was the attempts by Antiochus Epiphanes to Hellenize Judea that led to a declaration of war on the part of the Maccabees.
By E.S.
There is a limit to how far we should accommodate Hareidi norms in the public space. A normative system doesn’t simply respond to reality; it actively shapes and influences people’s perceptions of reality. The rules followed by the Hareidi world actively encourage a perception of women as little more than dangerously arousing sexual objects. They do not encourage a perception of women as responsible members of society fully the equal of men in all matters of intelligence and competence. Hence these norms should not be indulged in the public sphere.
By Yael Valier
Recently yet another opportunity for Hareidi-bashing appeared, with the news that an 81 year-old woman is suing El Al after being forced to switch seats because a Hareidi man refused to sit next to her. Rabbi Marc Angel commented on the incident in a short article, "Thoughts on the Scandal on an El Al Airplane." But Rabbi Angel's critique misses a crucial point. In fact, there's reason to applaud one aspect of the Hareidi worldview.
The anti-Semitic world has a hard time with us Jews, and we should feel some pity for all those who work relentlessly to give us a bad name. They boycott us in academia, journalism, European governments, the market place, or just in the streets of daily life. But let’s be honest. Aren’t they right? Are we not truly a nuisance?
I was not planning to write about this, because by now the issue has sparked so much debate of such low quality that it has embarrassed Judaism, the Jewish people and the Kotel itself.
In Contemporary Issues, Education and Jewish Thought and Philosophy
Judaism is about bold ideas. Its goal is not to find the truth, but to inspire us to honestly search for it. Torah study is not only the greatest undertaking there is, but also the most dangerous, since it can easily lead to self-satisfaction and spiritual conceit. The leashing of our souls is easier than the building of our spirit.
Reply to a Jerusalem Rabbi
In Baruch Spinoza, Contemporary Issues, Education and Jewish Thought and Philosophy
Once the city magistrates of 17-century Amsterdam had made it abundantly clear to the Portuguese-Spanish Jewish Community that it could settle in Amsterdam only on condition that no member would ever dare to challenge the belief in the biblical God and the Old and New Testaments, Spinoza’s so-called heretical ideas became a serious challenge for the rabbis and leaders. It was a clear infringement of the agreement with the City of Amsterdam.
In Contemporary Issues, Education and Halacha
The foremost point of departure in any halachic decision must be that all people are created in the image of God and that all human life is holy. We forget this principle at our own peril
In Baruch Spinoza, Contemporary Issues and Jewish Thought and Philosophy
Spinoza, the celebrated seventeenth-century Amsterdam Jewish philosopher, is known as the father of the Enlightenment and has influenced generations of philosophers to this day. At the age of 23, he was excommunicated by the Portuguese-Spanish Jewish community of Amsterdam because of his heresies, which included his denying the existence of the Biblical God as well as the divinity of the Torah.
In Contemporary Issues and Halacha
In September 2015 the Journal of the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals, “Conversations”, published a long ground breaking essay on the need to redeem the Halacha and to bring it into line with the larger mission of the Jewish people in our days. Below are some segments.
In Contemporary Issues and Halacha
I need to be honest. I am contemplating taking off my kippah. Why, you might ask? I no longer want to be observant. Observance, for me and for many young people, has become irrelevant. It has been used by large sections of religious Jews to live in self-assured ease. Their religion is part of their contentment.