Judaism and Politics

David Polsky meticulously explores officer immunity in Halakha and compares it with the American legal standard of qualified immunity.

This war diary, presented by Susan Weingarten, relates her experience in a kibbutz on the Gazan border on October 7th and the days following her return to Jerusalem after the Hamas massacre.

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.

Wendy Zierler interprets a 2015 poem by the late Haim Gouri, reflecting on the challenges of aging, and on the complex and often mournful relationship between the Jewish people, their history, and their literature.

As Juneteenth sparks another round of discussion of blacks and the American experience, Chaim Trachtman compares and contrasts the Jewish and Black experiences in America through the lens of Jason Mott’s Hell of a Book.

Alex Ozar comments on preaching politics from the pulpit.

Chaim Saiman suggests that, in the midst of a political transition, we may be on the brink of a "Modern Orthodox Moment."

In this essay, Weinberg reflects on the symbolic significance of tefillin and its message for our Jewish future.

With a novel reading of Josephus and Gittin, Shana Schwartz proposes that the tragedy of the second hurban and the mystery of subsequent Jewish survival may be understood by reference to the physiological knowledge available in classical antiquity.

Fix the Israeli Rabbinate, says Elli Fischer, but first identify the problem.