Articles

One People, Two Names Two thousand years before today’s debates over Jewish identity, ancient Judea had its own: Jews vs. Judeans. Prof. Daniel R. Schwartz on the forgotten conflict that split a people, destroyed a Temple, and gave rise to the rabbis By Alex Stein

The Other Great Hebrew Poet Shaul Tchernichovsky was Bialik’s equal in talent, but a very different kind of poet: a cosmopolitan drawn to Greek mythology, European literature and the aesthetics of everyday Jewish life. His rebellious spirit made him a literary giant – and an outsider By Gilad Halpern

Parashat Vayeira: Lot’s Daughters Feeling crushing despair, Lot offers his daughters to the men of Sodom; the daughters later lie with their father to preserve humanity. Both acts stem from genuine distress, not wickedness. The Torah’s silence holds a question about intention, consequence, and moral complexity By Lior Tal Sadeh

Parashat Lech-Lecha: Parting in Love Abram and Lot part ways because they are brothers in spirit – not despite it. The separation tests and ultimately proves their bond when Abram risks everything to rescue Lot from captivity. A meditation on why sometimes love requires distance By Lior Tal Sadeh

A Duel in Letters: Hannah Arendt and Gershom Scholem Bound by their shared devotion to Walter Benjamin, Hannah Arendt and Gershom Scholem spent decades debating Zionism, Jewish identity, and the Holocaust, until the Eichmann trial brought their profound ideological differences to a breaking point By Gilad Halpern

Parashat Noach: And the Earth Was Filled with Violence The Flood generation wasn’t destroyed for grand crimes, but for petty theft exploiting legal loopholes – masses of callous people systematically impoverishing their neighbors within the letter of the law. A meditation on how societies collapse through normalized small injustices By Lior Tal Sadeh

When Berlin’s Objects Begin to Speak An ancient coin bearing a Hebrew name, drawings by Else Lasker-Schüler, and a painting from the final years of the Weimar Republic. A new agreement between Beit Avi Chai and the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (SPK) opens a window onto the Jewish story in Germany through the objects left behind By Noa Sorek

A Jewish Criminal? Gevald! Medieval Jews committed crimes too. Prof. Ephraim Shoham-Steiner uncovers a hidden history of theft, fraud, violence, murder, and prostitution – and explores why Jewish communities and historians were so reluctant to tell the story By Alex Stein

Parashat Bereshit: Ruler or Leader Is eating from the Tree of Knowledge a sin or humanity’s founding act of freedom? Exploring the rabbinic concept of transgression for the sake of Heaven, when breaking divine law becomes an elixir of life By Lior Tal Sadeh

Meeting an Old Friend Anew: The Ancient Rewriting of Genesis Long before the rabbis, Jewish readers were already rewriting Genesis. Dr. Hillel Mali explores how Second Temple Jews reimagined biblical stories to resolve contradictions, absorb new ideas, and make ancient texts speak anew By Alex Stein

Market Value If there’s one place to get to know everyday life in Jerusalem, it’s Mahane Yehuda Market. Perhaps that’s why Aliza Auerbach turned her lens toward it By Noa Sorek

Sukkot Special: Happiness and Wealth Everything is futile, fleeting, temporary – so why rejoice? Ecclesiastes embraces two perspectives: the lofty view that all is vanity, and the human view that savors the present moment. Sukkot teaches us to hold both truths at once By Lior Tal Sadeh

Parashat Haazinu: More than Hearing We hear constantly, but do we truly listen? Exploring the distinction between hearing and giving ear, and the challenge of dialogical listening – being fully present without imposing our own world onto another’s By Lior Tal Sadeh

A Guest in His Hometown He goes home, or to a place he used to call home, only to find it foreign and desolate. Bilha Ben Eliyahu on S. Y. Agnon’s Nobel Prize–winning novel “A Guest for the Night”, and the question of whether anyone can really return By Gilad Halpern

When Moses Fought the Angel of Death Moses negotiated the terms of his own death, fought off the Angel of Death, and died by a kiss from God instead. Prof. Avigdor Shinan on Midrash Petirat Moshe, and why one of Judaism’s strangest texts still has something to say about how we face mortality By Alex Stein