Israeli Culture

Rav Ronen Neuwirth suggests that the strictures of social distancing enable us to reduce this year's Lag BaOmer bonfires - which he sees as a very good thing.

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.

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

With the Yamim Noraim approaching, Avinoam Stillman analyzes Ḥavvayah, “experience,” in the thought of A.D. Gordon.

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.

Josh Rosenfeld delves into the world of Rabbi Menachem Froman.

Sarah Rindner reviews Shababniks and its portrait of haredi life.

In commemoration of Rav Amital's seventh Yahrtzeit, Shlomo Zuckier shares Rav Amital's teachings on Jewish continuity, in Derasha form.

A growing list of dati le’umi leaders and thinkers frame war as a desirable state and even an opportunity for spiritual elevation. Religious Israeli activist Ariel Shwartz traces this trend with alarm and argues that it contradicts deep-rooted Torah values. Translated by Mordechai Blau.

In response to Gil Perl's Postmodern Orthodoxy, Gidon Rothstein asks for another look at Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein and the limits of pluralism and what we consider "truth."