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
Redeeming Haim Hazaz
by Darren Pinsker When the Israeli writer Haim Hazaz died in 1973, his reputation was so lofty in the world
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?
Aaron David Miller on the Middle East’s “Angry, Dysfunctional” Future
by Wesley G. Pippert Aaron David Miller, an adviser on the Middle East for six secretaries of state, believes that
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?
Opinion | Israel’s Unresolved Democracy Problem
By Marshall Breger How can the Palestinians recognize a Jewish state if Israelis don’t know what that means? In 1958,
Jewish Word // Philistine
How Philistine Became a Dirty Word by Caitlin Yoshiko Kandil t’s a story nearly everyone knows: The young shepherd boy uses
On the Road with Benjamin of Tudela
Jewish traveler Benjamin of Tudela roamed widely across the medieval world, from Narbonne to Cairo, meeting Rabbanites and Karaites along the way.
Visual Moment // Medieval Cairo
By Diane M. Bolz // Today, fewer than 50 Jews remain in Egypt, but for thousands of years the country was home to a series of important Jewish communities.
This Week in Jewish Politics, Culture and Religion: Netanyahu and Pope Francis, Plus Google’s Pursuit of Immortality
Benjamin Netanyahu met with Pope Francis at the Vatican this week, presenting the pontiff with a Spanish translation of The
Opinion: One State? Only on Twitter!
“Techno-utopianism” promotes the misconception that a shared state is possible. // By Gershom Gorenberg
Q&A: Naomi Tsur on Women in Jerusalem Politics
Naomi Tsur spent five years as a third-string deputy to Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, responsible for the ancient city’s urban