Israeli Culture

What is it like to make aliyah from New Jersey precisely at a time when North American Jewry is suffering more heavily than Israel? Ahead of Yom Yerushalayim, Sarah Rindner, drawing on Yehuda ha-Levi and Yehudah Amichai, reflects.

Sarah Rindner reviews Shababniks and its portrait of haredi life.

With masterful translation, Tzvi Novick offers a glimpse of Israeli culture to our English readers.

Udi Dvorkin offers a plea to take Rav Shagar at his full value, which means reading him in the original Hebrew.

Jeremy Tibbetts explores Hitbodedut in the thought of Rav Shagar and Rav Elchanan Nir, two contemporary Israeli thinkers.

Rav Dov Zinger discusses his innovative perspective on education, and why its important to listen to what happens beyond the back and forth of the classroom.

Zach Truboff explores Rav Kook's fascinating philosophy of history, focusing on five recently translated essays.

Have you seen the latest teen magazine for religious Zionist women? Yoel Finkelman has, and he has some thoughts.

Organizations advocating for Jewish renewal in Israel have become increasingly popular in the last decade, seeking to transcend the religious-secular divide and articulate a vision of Jewish civilization as a shared identity. David Sperber explores the ways that these organizations effectively seek to recreate models that have already long existed in non-Orthodox denominations, but to wrap them in the idioms and culture of Orthodoxy. He argues that failure to recognize the non-Orthodox contributions is unjustified and hopes that Israeli society can grow to "recognize renewal wherever it has taken root."

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.