Jewish identity
The real fight facing American Jews is not against intermarriage but for marriage itself.
The battle is over; or so we’re told. A half-century after the rate of intermarriage in the US began to skyrocket, the Jewish community appears to have resigned itself to the inevitable. But to declare defeat is preposterous.
Genesis gives us two separate accounts of the creation of man; but do they (as Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik argues) offer contradictory and irreconcilable perspectives?
In the words of a leading British Zionist: “The idea of Judaism is inseparable from the idea of the Jewish people, and the idea of. . .
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?
There should be no place in Judaism or in the state of Israel for religious coercion of any type. This is not a facile concession to modernity, nor to convenience. It is a position rooted in deep theological reflection.
Moshe Koppel wants to clear something up: He's not actually calling for less religious involvement in public life.
It is often remarked that America is the most religious Western democracy because and not in spite of its separation of religion and state. Would an Israel that adopted a similar system be both more democratic and more Jewish? Yes but also no, argues Ruth Gavison. In the Israeli context, the relevance of the American model is limited.
The utter fragility of Jewish sovereignty has been a fact of history—a fact worth pondering during this annual period of mourning for lost commonwealths.
Moshe Koppel argues brilliantly for the separation of religion and state in Israel. But he makes one mistake: religion is not just one choice among many.
Can a new Knesset lobby resolve the dilemma of the almost quarter-million Israelis who are not recognized as Jews by religious authorities but identify themselves. . .
When religious Jews “go off the derekh”—abandon the practice of Judaism—it is not necessarily because they have found something better.
Since the 1970s, South Africa's Jewish community has declined from 120,000 to 73,000 souls as its members increasingly migrate to Australia, Israel, America, and England.
Millions of viewers watched a thirteen-year-old boy win a national spelling bee by spelling “knaidel” right—but, from the point of view of Jewish cultural and. . .