Новости за 24.07.2018

My colleague Liel Leibovitz has a piece in today’s Wall Street Journal that reflects a common conservative misconception about one of America’s most venerable Jewish institutions, the Anti-Defamation League. In his characteristically clear prose, Liel argues that the ADL has morphed into a partisan attack outlet for the left, abandoning its traditional role in fighting anti-Jewish prejudice across the political spectrum.

Yesterday morning a 220-pound boulder was dislodged from the Western Wall and fell to the ground near Robinson’s Arch, a site currently used for egalitarian prayer. Fortunately, it missed 79-year-old Daniella Goldberg by mere inches. Unfortunately, it inspired some in Israel to see the incident as a portent of divine wrath.

In October 2011, during the harvest festival of Sukkot, a number of progressive Jewish congregations in New York City held a joint Sukkot service at Occupy Wall Street. It may or may not have been called Occupy Sukkot. I can’t remember. What I remember is that we observed the ancient traditions: held hands, danced in a circle, shook the Four Species—myrtle, citron, willow and palm frond. I remember the percussive green spine of the palm frond rising into the air, rattling, the citron bumpy and cool against my palm. Читать дальше...

I have some news that may come as a shock to some of you: Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people.

Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world.

Historical narratives are built around artifacts—preserved and frail relics from past epochs. Mythology erupts in the absence of such relics, and it is the sort of absence that doesn’t let one alone. Celebrating its first centennial this year, the Jewish Archive at the Vernadsky Library in Kiev is, perhaps, one of the oddest crossroads of history and mythology: It is filled with incredible artifacts of the Eastern European Jewish past, and yet, it hangs suspended within a cognitive void, in the... Читать дальше...