Israel

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.

Aton Holzer offers a novel interpretation of Isaiah 53 based on current events in Israel.

In an original Hebrew poem for Tishrei 5785, Shoshanah Haberman addresses God directly about the pain and uncertainty of our moment.

Aton Holzer reflects on Jerusalem and Zionism.

Raphael Jospe and Zach Truboff write regarding recent articles that have driven conversation.

Warren Zev Harvey reflects on the pain and fear of Israel’s current moment, finding unexpected hope in R. Joseph Kaspi’s anti-deterministic theory of history. The essay was originally published in Hebrew and translated by the author.

Hillel Rapp explores how Israel education has changed in a post-Oct. 7 world.

Organizations advocating for Jewish renewal in Israel have become increasingly popular in the last decade, seeking to transcend the religious-secular divide and articulate a vision of Jewish civilization as a shared identity. David Sperber explores the ways that these organizations effectively seek to recreate models that have already long existed in non-Orthodox denominations, but to wrap them in the idioms and culture of Orthodoxy. He argues that failure to recognize the non-Orthodox contributions is unjustified and hopes that Israeli society can grow to "recognize renewal wherever it has taken root."

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.

R.A. Alpert argues that the differences between Hamas and the Zealots outweigh the similarities.