Judaism and Politics

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.

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.

Ethan Schwartz reviews Yitchak Etshalom’s new volume on the prophet Amos, considering ways in which the author succeeds and fails to recreate the divine roar of Amos’ message.

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.

The biblical figure of Esther is often interpreted by traditional and modern commentators as a heroine of active leadership. Naama Sadan offers a novel perspective, according to which Esther confronts national crisis in female-coded ways, triumphing and saving her people through internally-focused activism.

Is Jewish stubbornness a stereotype or a source of pride? In the Torah, it appears as a criticism, but also as a veiled praise for the people of Israel’s unique power of commitment. Zach Truboff highlights this strength in an application of the words of the Piaseczner Rebbe to our current moment of crisis.

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

Our traditional longing for the rebuilding of the Beit Ha-Mikdash elides uncomfortable questions about the dramatic differences between sacrificial worship and our current models of serving God. Meir Kraus argues that the time has come to engage in this difficult conversation, especially in light of the growing religious-political movement to restore Jewish presence on the Temple Mount. Kraus also proposes an “alternative vision” for a future Temple era.

Joshua Leifer’s new book illustrates the collapse of several paradigms that long sustained American Jewish life. In his review, Steven Gotlib notes that Leifer’s search for a viable, non-separatist, traditional Judaism overlooks several existing models of Jewish life and practice.