Commentary

Yitzchak Blau and Michael Broyde respond to recent articles that have driven conversation.

Stu Halpern weighs in on the eternal wisdom Torah u-Madda offers the world during the fraught times in which we live.

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.

Ezra Schwartz uses artificial intelligence and a famous story about gizzards as a prism to discuss the role of the rabbi in the modern age.

Sima Fried reviews Jonathan Boyarin’s Yeshiva Days, illuminating the challenges of examining a community as both an insider and an outsider.

Yitzhak Szyf explores the piyyut of Shnei Zeitim, a once well-known addition to the Shabbat Hanukkah services that subtly critiques the Hasmoneans for usurping the kingship while serving as priests.

David Bashevkin reviews Gleanings: Reflections on Ruth.

Just in advance of the shloshim for David Ellenson, the former president of Hebrew Union College, Jonathan D. Sarna pays tribute to a man whose life, work, and friendships spanned the Jewish denominational divide.

Zev Eleff examines some of the toys peddled around by mitzvah merchants and other fascinating features of Ultra-Orthodox culture. 

Do Jewish texts teach racism? It depends on how you read them, answers Chaim Trachtman.