What Does Kosher Mean Today?
By Scott Fox
Food is perhaps one of the “greyest” aspects of Jewish life today. The Torah instructs us to abstain from ritually impure foods—but what...
Should We Remove the "Israel Filter" When Studying the Middle East? It's Worth Trying.
By Leigh Nusbaum
A few weeks ago, my class on the contemporary politics in the Middle East was discussing the domestic future of Syria, particularly when...
Should We Remove the “Israel Filter” When Studying the Middle East? It’s Worth Trying.
By Leigh Nusbaum
A few weeks ago, my class on the contemporary politics in the Middle East was discussing the domestic future of Syria, particularly when...
The Rise of Jews in the True North
By Scott Fox
Last week, Canada’s Consul General came to talk at my school (Carleton College in Minnesota) about the importance of the United States’ relationship...
The Shalit Conundrum . . . Or Opportunity
By Leigh Nusbaum
When Gilad Shalit was kidnapped more than five years ago, I was almost 17 years old and en route to Israel for the...
Ask the Rabbis | What Does Judaism Say About Love?
Love is defined in Hebrew as ahavah, which is rooted in the Aramaic word hav and literally translates as “give.”
How Should the Jewish Community Respond to Syria?
After taking a back seat in recent weeks to news from elsewhere in the world, the civil war in Syria is back in newspaper headlines,...
Yom Kippur, Israel and Turkey
By Leigh Nusbaum
There is a saying in my High Holy Day siddur, the Gates of Repentance, that says, “For transgressions against God, the Day of...
A Jewish New Year Resolution: Scaling Back Our Use of the “D” Word
By Leigh Nusbaum
This is not a salvo—this is a challenge.
This past year, both Jewish and secular, has been an incredible conundrum for Jews in Israel...
118 Days in Iran’s Evin Prison
Iranian journalist and filmmaker Maziar Bahari was always fascinated by Jewish history and culture. His torturers made him pay for it.