Moshe Koppel is a member of the department of computer science at Bar-Ilan University and chairman of the Kohelet Policy Forum in Jerusalem. His book, Judaism Straight Up: Why Real Religion Endures, has just been released by Maggid Books.
Four more of our writers pick several favorites each, featuring two Ruths, passengers, Lincoln, Verdun, chief rabbis, Jewish Montreal, sweet spots, a fortress, and more.
Five of our regular writers pick several favorites each, featuring Turkish denial, Jesus’s wife, coffeehouse culture, angst, WEIRDness, and Judaism straight up.
By a number of measures Israeli sensibilities have always been fairly conservative, but conservatism as an ideology was long frowned upon—until recently. What’s next?
Seven of our regular writers pick several favorites each, featuring sieges, spies, cultural revolutions, family papers, useful enemies, new fields of inquiry, and more.
Letters, antidotes, eternal lives, outcasts, secret worlds, pogroms, and more.
Some of the people who now criticize the law were for it only a few years ago.
The controversial new law has been reviled as “an assassination of democracy” and a subversion of the founding principles of the Jewish state. It’s neither.
A dazzling new book reminds us that our minds don’t work like computers—and that wisdom, including the moral wisdom of Judaism, doesn’t progress like science.
For many members of Israel’s haredi community, loyalty is signaled by rendering oneself useless in the outside world.
A madly intrusive justice system is one of the most potent threats the country faces. Can it be stopped?
If you value Judaism and wish to see it retain its vitality, keep it out of the hands of the state. Is that so complicated?