Holidays

Tzvi Sinensky contends that the rabbinic and feminist readings of Vashti are not diametrically opposed.

How did Esther shape the way Puritans saw the ideal role of the contemporary woman? Cotton Mather, a major player in the Salem Witch Trials, had much to say in his Ornaments for the Daughters of Zion. Stuart Halpern of Yeshiva University explains, wishing us all a Puritan Purim.

For Parshat Zakhor, this short story by Shira Eliaser richly imagines the world of King Saul and the clandestine encounter that brought Haman’s Amalekite ancestors into the world.

Why does the Tosefta accuse the Jews of being deceitful at Sinai? Worse still, why is God portrayed as being complicit in their deception? Ahead of Shavuot, Sara Wolkenfeld explains.

Stuart Halpern explains how, when faced with uncertainty, danger, and personal and communal hardships, Americans have turned to the story of the Exodus for inspiration.

R. Shimshon Nadel explores the connection between the Hasmonean dynasty and the modern-day State of Israel.

This year, instead of thinking about the reasons for Jonah’s flight from Nineveh in particular, we can gain a new appreciation for his need to break free altogether. Ahead of Yom Kippur, Erica Brown considers the unique resonance of the book of Jonah in an era marked by isolation and quarantine.

Aton Holzer offers a novel re-reading of the Seder, arguing that it reflects and recreates four types of liberty that can be found in the Exodus narrative, as well as a fifth form of freedom.

With a novel reading of Josephus and Gittin, Shana Schwartz proposes that the tragedy of the second hurban and the mystery of subsequent Jewish survival may be understood by reference to the physiological knowledge available in classical antiquity.

Yosef Lindell examines how Yehudah ha-Levi's kinnah about the bubbling blood of Zechariah modifies the story found in Talmudic sources and thus tackles the question of theodicy.