Commentary

In December 1932, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik had just arrived in Boston and outlined his vision for Orthodox Jewish education in the United States.

In this latest piece addressing Modern Orthodox education, Anthony Knopf lays out the case for formal moral education in our schools that is rooted in Jewish thought and guided by the latest research in the field.

In honor of the recent release of Moshe Koppel's new Koren/Maggid book, Judaism Straight Up: Why Real Religion Endures, Elli Fischer traces the decades-long trajectory of Koppel's "Torah of the Kishkes" philosophy of Judaism.

Yaakov Jaffe examines Yehudah Ha-Levi's High Holiday poem "Yashen, Al Teradam"

Zev Eleff on an endangered species, the so-called Non-Observant Orthodox Jew.

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.

  Zach Truboff In 1933, as the month of Elul approached, the Jewish people faced a frightening array of dangers. That year, Hitler consolidated power as...

Steven Gotlib reviews Eugene Korn’s To Be a Holy People: Jewish Tradition and Ethical Values, a book which asks hard questions about whether Halakhah can integrate with the demands of contemporary ethics.

The Ne’ilah prayer, which we recite only once a year, clearly represents a moment of great religious drama, but its precise nature and purpose are somewhat mysterious. Alan Jotkowitz presents four different models for understanding Ne’ilah, drawing upon the teachings of Rav Yehuda Amital, Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, and Rav Ya’akov Medan.

Zev Eleff on a uniquely American Jewish "righteous commodity" Gedolim Cards