Comments on the news of the day: Jewish peoplehood, for one thing

A controversial new book, The Invention of the Jewish People, by Tel Aviv University historian Shlomo Sand, is now in English, after kicking up a dust storm of controversy in its original Hebrew incarnation. This is a summary of the book’s thesis, as explained in a recent review on Tablet, an online Jewish cultural magazine:
Sand… [...]

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Two articles from new Havruta journal now online

Two articles from the third issue of Havruta, “The Spiritual Quest,” are now available online:
Beyond Maimonides: The search for God in postmodern America, by Alfredo Borodowski
A song for many voices: The soul of secular Israel, by Rani Jaeger

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Shooting of gay teens in Tel Aviv, Israel, a shocking attack

Israel – parts of it at least – promotes itself as the most tolerant country in the Middle East. Gays and lesbians have a freedom to live openly unheard of in the Arab world. Transsexual singer Dana International is a popular entertainer and TV personality. Yet… Yet… Late Saturday an unidentified shooter opened fire in [...]

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Israel and North American Jews – Do we need each other? Do we understand each other?

Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic Monthly interviewed Michael Oren, a New York state native who is now Israel’s ambassador to the United States in Aspen, CO, recently. In the interview (click here to see the entire interview on video; click here to read the Israel-Diaspora relations segment edited down for you), Oren discusses the need [...]

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Hartman Institute creating ‘North American Scholars Circle’

This is a new program designed to draw 15-16 North American scholars out of their universities and into larger, deeper projects on top-level Jewish, Israeli, and continuity issues, among others. Invites are going out soon to potential participants. Details of the program here.

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Heated commentary on Donniel Hartman ‘blog’ about Obama’s Cairo speech

President Obama’s speech in Cairo occurred more than a week ago, and Donniel Hartman’s commentary on the speech (“Are Jews Ready for Obama?“) also has been online for more than a week, but the debate – about the speech, and about Donniel’s commentary has yet to die down.
Several dozen comments have been published (and a [...]

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Donniel Hartman comments on President Obama’s speech in Cairo

UPDATE: Yes, Donniel’s post is already online, and has been so for several days. Sorry it took a while to get back to this post. See Donniel’s post here: “Are Jews Ready for Obama?“:
While President Obama’s speech in Cairo was also about settlements, and about the Road Map, in essence it was about neither. It [...]

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Melilah Hellner-Eshed: Ways of remembering Sinai – Part 2

Shalom Hartman Institute Fellow and Scholar Melilah Hellner-Eshed talks about how to remember the event at Sinai in which the Jewish people received the Torah, and what is Jewish memory, the how the transmission of the collective Jewish memory was through ritual and reciting. This is the second in a series of three classes given [...]

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David Hartman on communal v. narrow interests in Israel

David Hartman’s latest blog says it all: Israel will never have a government worthy of helping create the Jewish renaissance as long as narrow parochial interests and political expediency are the two key factors in forming governments:
Family is an important Jewish value, [but] narrow, parochial interests can destroy a national consensus and the building of [...]

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Pesach’s over – did you enjoy it?

OK, Pesach is over for us here in Israel; it’s still happening if you keep to the second day of chag in ch”ool (chootz la’aretz – outside “the land,” i.e., Israel). So, this is still relevant – if only as something to think about for next year – the Shalom Hartman Institute’s A Different Night: [...]

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