Israeli Culture

Our traditional longing for the rebuilding of the Beit Ha-Mikdash elides uncomfortable questions about the dramatic differences between sacrificial worship and our current models of serving God. Meir Kraus argues that the time has come to engage in this difficult conversation, especially in light of the growing religious-political movement to restore Jewish presence on the Temple Mount. Kraus also proposes an “alternative vision” for a future Temple era.

Raphael Jospe and Zach Truboff write regarding recent articles that have driven conversation.

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

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.

Author Risa Miller reviews Beth Kissileff's debut novel, Questioning Return.

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

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.

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

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