Commentary

Is the Mishnah racist? To answer the question, begs Elli Fischer, is to get a better understanding of both Judaism and Race

What motivated the first Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rav Herzog, to work tirelessly on the seemingly quixotic project of running the modern State of Israel on the basis of Halakhah? Reviewing Alexandar Kaye's new book on the subject, Rabbi Shalom Carmy explains.

Yehuda Fogel comments on the nature of controversy and dispute through the eyes of R. Nahman of Bratslav

Zachary Truboff considers the experience of prayer, and what two recent publications on Tefillah emerging from the Religious Zionist community contribute.

Aryeh Klapper explores the Mikvah leniencies of Rabbi David Miller and what led one of his opponents to accuse him of making an obvious grammar mistake.

Herschel Grossman responds to David Stein on Modern Orthodox education.

Moshe Koppel Reviews Chaim Saiman's Halakhah: The Rabbinic Idea of Law.

Dan Margulies explains the Hazon Ish's discussion about the problem of using electricity on Shabbat, with implications for Zoom Sedarim.

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.

What was Alexander Hamilton's relationship to Judaism? In his review of a new book about Hamilton's Jewish world, Lehrhaus editor Yisroel Ben-Porat explores the arguments to be made for a "Jewish" founding father.