Of all the medieval Jewish Bible commentators, I find Abraham ibn Ezra (1089-1167) the most intriguing. An accomplished poet with a rich education in the arts and sciences along with foundational rabbinic texts, he treated mysticism, theology, grammar, astronomy, astrology, and mathematics not as separate disciplines but as part of a smoothly integrated whole. Tzvi Langermann discusses this fascinating rabbi with J.J. Kimche, explaining Ibn Ezra’s “arithmology” (ideas about the significance of numbers), his friendship with his relative and fellow poet-rabbi Judah Halevi, and his relationship to rationalism. (Audio, minutes.)

In October, a young Mauritanian national murdered an Orthodox Jewish man on his way to synagogue in Chicago. This alone should be sufficient sign of the rising dangers of anti-Semitism. Nathan Diament explains how the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act (AAA) can, if passed, make American Jews safer:

We were off to a promising start when the AAA sailed through the House of Representatives in the spring by a generous vote of 320 to 91, and 30 senators from both sides of the aisle jumped to sponsor the Senate version. Then the bill ground to a halt.

Fearful of antagonizing their left-wing activist base and putting vulnerable senators on the record, especially right before the November election, Democrats delayed bringing the AAA to the Senate floor for a vote. Now, the election is over, but the political games continue.

You can’t combat anti-Semitism if you can’t—or won’t—define it. Modern anti-Semites hide their hate behind virulent anti-Zionism. . . . The Anti-Semitism Awareness Act targets this loophole by codifying that the Department of Education must use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of anti-Semitism in its application of Title VI.