Judaism and Politics

Chaim Trachtman shows how a careful examination of debates between Shammai and Hillel challenge our preconceived notions about them.

Jerome Marcus comments on the connection between davening with sinners and playing politics.

A growing list of dati le’umi leaders and thinkers frame war as a desirable state and even an opportunity for spiritual elevation. Religious Israeli activist Ariel Shwartz traces this trend with alarm and argues that it contradicts deep-rooted Torah values. Translated by Mordechai Blau.

Chesky Kopel looks at the various tellings and retellings of the controversial deal that Rudolph Kastner made with Nazi leadership in Budapest and argues that they represent a modern-day Midrashic presentation of the history.

As this election season draws to a close at last, Zev Eleff crunches the numbers on the Modern Orthodox vote—a demographic whose politics are not so easy to pin down.

Shaul Seidler-Feller Introduction Early last week, a friend forwarded me a recently-published video produced in Israel. When it began to play, I was quickly taken in...

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, published here are excerpts from letters of an American student studying in Israel in 1973. These letters, written during and immediately after the war, shed light on Yeshivat Har Etzion in its formative years and the lasting impact of the Yom Kippur War.

Jonathan Muskat responds to Jonathan Sarna regarding a proposed change in the text of the Orthodox Jewish prayer for the government.

No two Orthodox rabbis think exactly the same way, particularly on the matter of Darwinism in the wake of the Scopes Trial. 

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.