Israel

In the summer of 2024, IDF police raided the Sde Teiman base as part of an investigation into reports of serious abuse of alleged terrorist detainees. The many turns of the resulting controversy divided Israeli society during wartime and brought global attention to Israel's military prisons. Ari Zivitofsky reflects on these events and argues that senior officials in the Israeli government and media failed to heed the dictates of the Jewish ethical tradition.

Following the World Zionist Congress, Gabriel Slamovits reflects on the significance of the event and how the journey of Avraham and Sarah in Parshat Lech Lecha informs the future.

The Haredi community in Israel and its institutions have resisted army service and other forms of societal integration since the founding of the State. As the controversy over drafting Haredi citizens continues to feature in headlines, Nathaniel Helfgot revisits a well-known but underexplored episode in early Israeli history: the meeting and correspondence between Prime Minister David Ben Gurion and Rabbi Avraham Yeshaya Karelitz, known as the Hazon Ish.

David Polsky explores a passage in the Sifrei that is key to articulating a Halakahic position on withholding food as a military tactic.

Roy Pinchot responds to Zach Truboff's article decrying the ethical and spiritual costs of the war.

As the war in Israel approaches its third year, Zach Truboff calls upon Israeli society and its friends abroad to confront the spiritual and moral cost of the violence.

Aton Holzer reflects on Jerusalem and Zionism.

Ethan Zadoff discusses what Israel education should look like post-October 7.

Drawing upon Jewish history and human anatomy, Shmuel Chaim Naiman demonstrates how the Land of Israel serves as a collective body for the collective Jewish soul.

Twelve years after the passing of R. Menachem Froman, his daughter-in-law, the scholar and activist Tchiya Froman, considers R. Froman’s literary critique of the Gush Emunim settlement enterprise and his determination that Judaism requires a feminine revolution.