The Adelson Effect
Billionaire Sheldon Adelson is best known in the United States for his outsized contributions to Republican presidential candidates. But in Israel, where he owns two newspapers, he may wield far more influence.
Opinion // Our Loss Is Putin’s Gain
Carl von Clausewitz, the imposing German general whose theories about war remain influential nearly 200 years after his death, observed that “public opinion is won through great victories and the occupation of the enemy’s capital.” Not anymore.
Opinion // “I Want To Serve, But…”
Naomi Ragen
Fear of ostracism—not lack of conviction—prevents some haredi men from enlisting.
A day before the haredi “million man march” called to protest the new drafting...
Opinion // Bans, Blacklists and Flyers, Oh My!
Letty Cottin Pogrebin
As usual, the thought police are trying to silence diversity of opinion about Israel.
I’m not usually prone to hysteria or hyperbole, but lately...
Ask the Rabbis // Addiction
INDEPENDENT: Addiction is highlighted in the Torah’s account of the Revelation at Mount Sinai, where the One Who Spoke and the World Came into Being instructed us not to get so caught up in our subjective assumptions about God that we would carve out and worship an image reflecting those assumptions.
Can Religious Pluralism and an Official Rabbinate Coexist in Israel?
Moment asks a wide range of scholars, activists and religious leaders to suggest if and how religious pluralism and the chief rabbinate can coexist
Book Review // The Golden Age Shtetl: A New History of Jewish Life in East Europe
The history of the Jews of Eastern Europe and Russia has a singular place in the Jewish imagination today. To some, it is a dead subject, poisoned by the Holocaust and the lethal anti-Semitism of the 19th and 20th centuries: Either we know everything we need to know about it or there is nothing worth knowing. To others, it is shrouded in the nostalgia-laden distance of the Old Country…
Book Review // Rav Kook: Mystic in a Time of Revolution
Who was Rav Kook, the first chief rabbi of Jewish Palestine? Many have tried to understand this complex, charismatic scholar whose embrace of modernism existed side-by-side with strict traditionalism. How to explain his contradictory mixture of tolerance and orthodoxy, nationalism and universalism, mysticism and activism? Kook was a poet, religious jurist, philosopher and communal leader. Was he a Zionist?
Slivovitz: A Plum (Brandy) Choice
For many Jews, slivovitz—the Eastern European plum brandy—is wrapped in nostalgia, evoking memories of irascible relatives downing fiery shots over Yiddish banter, or the mysterious bottle at the back of your grandmother’s pantry, revealed only during Passover seders. Over the years, slivovitz has become a distinctly Jewish beverage, one to rival Manischewitz wine, and a popular social lubricant to celebrate the good times and lament the bad.
Visual Moment // Persian Jewish Art
Illuminating the History of Iranian Jews
By Diane M. Bolz
Jews have lived in Persia, now Iran, for nearly three millennia. The first Jewish community dates back...
King David’s Genes
Some prominent Jewish families believe they are descended from Israel’s greatest monarch. Can DNA testing prove what their family trees have long shown?
Book Review // Little Failure: A memoir by Gary Shteyngart
The title, Little Failure, is of course ironic. By now, after Gary Shteyngart’s three best-selling comic novels, many travel articles and dozens of interviews—in which he rarely gives a straight answer—his Russian Jewish immigrant parents must have forgiven him for not becoming the lawyer or accountant they envisioned. Or have they?