Israeli Culture

In a continuing series on great, modern Israeli thinkers, Joe Wolfson explores the powerful themes in a novel by Rav Haim Sabato.

Meshulam Gotlieb responds to Shaul Seidler-Feller with his own interpretation of Shas' 2019 political campaign.

Shlomo Spivack discusses the anti-spirituality of his teacher, Rav Menachem Froman.

What can we learn from Rav Kook's writings before he immigrated to the land of Israel? As Yom Ha-Atzma'ut approaches, Levi Morrow reviews Yehuda Mirsky's new prehistory of Rav Kook.

In honor of his tenth yahrtzheit, art historian Jackie Frankel Yaakov explores the art of Jewish Israeli artist Edwin Salomon (1935-2014). She argues that he was able to embrace his own expressionistic, Surrealism-evoking style when these approaches were marginalized in the Israeli art, shedding light on the ways he processed his experiences in the Holocaust and as a new immigrant to Israel.

With the emerging Kneset leadership bringing together a broad range of political parties, consider Zach Truboff's review of Rav Shagar's writings (in honor of his upcoming yahrtzeit), which argue that Religious Zionist thought must transcend the old binary of Left and Right.

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.

Leslie Ginsparg Klein's reflections on Shimon Peres, Zionism, and the importance of nuance.

Sarah Rindner reviews Shababniks and its portrait of haredi life.

Avinoam Stillman argues that the uniqueness of Yaakov Nagen's newly-translated book lies in its eclecticism and down-to-earth relevance to everyday life.