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Oct 16, 2026, 5:57 PM

Exploring the question of why Jews practice their faith and traditions is central to understanding Jewish identity. In his book, Why Do Jewish?, Zack Bodner examines the motivations behind living a Jewish life, considering both cultural and religious aspects....

Oct 15, 2026, 11:41 PM

Religion fuels conflict. It can also help put it out.

Extremists aim to turn Israel-Palestine into a holy war. But Israelis and Palestinians aren't fully buying it — and people of good faith can intervene. In recent weeks, my social media feeds filled with clips of Jewish religious extremists hijacking...

Oct 5, 2026, 12:06 PM

Three years on, fare well

Illustrative: Israeli soldiers gather near the border with Gaza before entering the Hamas-run enclave on October 31, 2023. (Gil COHEN-MAGEN / AFP)

In war, we learned to carry one another despite our differences. Now I am trying to bring that way of being together home

David Nekrutman

Oct 5, 2026, 12:03 PM

When Shabbat, Religious Freedom, and Evangelism Collided at One Café

When Café Basimta opened its doors in an unassuming Jerusalem courtyard, it stepped squarely onto Israel’s most sensitive societal third rail: serving espresso on Shabbat. Jerusalem is not Tel Aviv. While commerce hums along in parts of East Jerusalem and...

Oct 2, 2026, 8:32 AM

AI’s More Subtle Existential Threat

When people call AI an existential threat, they usually mean the dramatic version: we build something smarter than ourselves, lose control of it, and it turns against us. But there is a subtler possibility. AI also threatens our essential capacities,...

Tony D. Senatore

Sep 25, 2026, 5:43 PM

More on The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, and Tolkien

I've been thinking about something that feels increasingly relevant to how we understand the world. The Bible tells us that there is a struggle between good and evil, and that ultimately good will prevail. Tolkien takes that ancient idea...

Karen Reiss Medwed

Sep 17, 2026, 9:30 PM

Keep Open the Gates

There is a precious moment in the final Yom Kippur service of Neilah, when we beseech, "p'tach lanu sha'ar, b'et ne'ilat sha'ar,” open a gate for us, at this time of the gate's closing. As the sun sets and darkness is about to envelop us, we cry out for...

Sep 7, 2026, 4:34 AM

Violence is winning

Haredi kids blocked me as I rushed in an ambulance to treat a woman in labor. They endangered her life and violated Jewish law

Aug 31, 2026, 7:13 PM

You’re soldiers. She’s a paramedic. Get in the APC

Image: ChatGPT

The refusal to share space with a woman exposes a widening clash over religion, equality and the Israel we want to be

Andy Blumenthal

Aug 30, 2026, 7:04 AM

There Is No “Other Jew”

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“Of course antisemitism is getting worse,” a Jewish friend told me recently. “But it’s not really happening to us.” I’ve heard variations of that sentence constantly since October 7. Sometimes it’s masked: “Our neighborhood is different.” “My office is fine.”...

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