Modern

Tzvi Sinensky on the lost Menorah, the Vatican theory, and the ideology of the search and mythology.

What motivated the first Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rav Herzog, to work tirelessly on the seemingly quixotic project of running the modern State of Israel on the basis of Halakhah? Reviewing Alexandar Kaye's new book on the subject, Rabbi Shalom Carmy explains.

Zev Eleff examines some of the toys peddled around by mitzvah merchants and other fascinating features of Ultra-Orthodox culture. 

With lively and accessible prose, Tamar Ross clarifies her theology of the revelation at Sinai in contrast to more traditional formulations such as Yoram Hazony's.

Stephen Denker reconstructs Bert Katz's experience of Kristallnacht in Nentershausen.

Batya Hefter uses the case of Isaac to illuminate how hasidic masters read the Bible.

Did the Founding Fathers study Kabbalah? Yisroel Ben-Porat reviews Brian Ogren’s new book Kabbalah and the Founding of America.

Peter Berger, Daniel Korobkin argues, offers an important lens to understand Orthodox Judaism, its religious features and institutions.

This war diary, presented by Susan Weingarten, relates her experience in a kibbutz on the Gazan border on October 7th and the days following her return to Jerusalem after the Hamas massacre.

What was Alexander Hamilton's relationship to Judaism? In his review of a new book about Hamilton's Jewish world, Lehrhaus editor Yisroel Ben-Porat explores the arguments to be made for a "Jewish" founding father.