As 2023 comes to a close, the Lehrhaus team is proud to feature some highlights from our contributions this past year. For over seven years, The Lehrhaus has been on a mission to provide thoughtful and engaging Jewish content. We continue to offer quality studies on history, parshah, Jewish thought, halakhah, and more, as well as to serve as a platform for passionate yet respectful debate on issues facing the Jewish community. This past year, we have once again produced at least one hundred original pieces across a wide variety of genres.  We have published many popular articles addressing contemporary issues, and have shared more short fiction than ever before.

We also recognize that these are not ordinary times for the Jewish community. Israel is at war, and Jews around the world are experiencing reverberations of Israel’s crisis, while taking action and lending support to those directly impacted by the violence. Alongside our usual content, we have made sure to solicit and publish first-hand accounts, relevant halakhic analyses, and Torah and theological perspectives on the crisis. In this way, we have tried to enable our readers to connect with Israel and find spiritual meaning in these events.

Please consider supporting us so we can continue to produce high-quality content for our growing community of readers! To donate, click here. The Lehrhaus is a 501(c)(3) tax exempt non-profit organization.

This year, we published many articles addressing contemporary issues. In time for the Super Bowl, Jeffrey Fox’s thoughts on whether watching football is problematic from a Torah point of view evoked a spirited dialogue. In March we published Yaakov Nagen’s examination of attitudes towards Islam in Jewish thought. Avi Garson traced the rise and fall of the classical Sephardic tradition. When Marc Shapiro reviewed a new book on approaches to the revelation at Sinai edited by Yoram Hazony and others, Tamar Ross responded, fleshing out her approach to revelation for a lay audience. And we published two articles on Reclaiming Dignity: A Guide to Tzniut for Men and Women by Bracha Poliakoff and Anthony Manning—a review by Laurie Novick and a sociological analysis of tzeniut trends by Emmanuel Bloch, which also led to discussion.

The Lehrhaus published seven original short stories this year—more short fiction than we’ve ever published before. Click for surprising biblical retellings by David Zvi Kalman, Shira Eliaser, Benjamin Guggenheim, and Dan Ornstein. Then savor Olga Lempert’s tale of a rain golem, Joseph Helmreich’s “Kiddush Levanah on the Moon,” and R.A. Alpert’s creative take on how one businessman might not be too happy should Mashiah arrive tomorrow.

Finally, we would like to highlight our coverage of the war in Israel. We published first-hand accounts by Susan Weingarten and Gilad Goldberg, a halakhic analysis of civilian casualties by Aryeh Klapper, Torah and theological perspectives on the crisis by Dov Lerner, Alan Jotkowitz, and Aton Holzer, and a kinnah by Shoshanah Haberman. Right before Hamas’ savage attack, we also published letters written during the Yom Kippur War by David J. Landes, z”l that proved sadly relevant again. May our tefillot for the wellbeing of Israel and Jews worldwide be answered speedily.

Here’s to a 2024 full of meaningful, insightful, and dynamic Jewish ideas!