Judaism articles from January 1997

Judaism archives from January 1997

Ethnic trait or religious value: why we Jews enjoy a good argument.
January 1, 1997... When Jews study Torah, they argue. When they sit sedately in a class room and acquire information, they may study, but they are not studying Torah. Tractate Abot is explicit on two things: (1) a shy person cannot learn, and (2) an ignorant person...

Party life. (poem)
January 1, 1997... In memory of Isaac Rothenfeld/Jack Ross (1904-1944) All their names were different now. In cramped, airless meeting rooms in Union Square, in garden apartments in Queens and bungalows in the Catskills, they lopped off extra syllables like...

Bearing witness: morality and religion in the thought of Yeshayahu Leibowitz. (Hebrew University of Jerusalem philosophy professor)
January 1, 1997... At the time of his death a little more than two years ago Yeshayahu Leibowitz held the position of Visiting Professor in the Department of Philosophy in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Prior to that he was head of the Biological Chemistry...

The scholar. (poem)
January 1, 1997... You are blind to all But the mind's light Illuminating your being Scholar decoding the scrolls Learned in many languages First you survived the darkness of Hitler Then you overcame the darkness of blindness To see the mind's light Envisioning...

Nature's healing power, the Holocaust, and the environmental crisis.
January 1, 1997... Two recent articles in this journal have raised fundamental questions about the relationship of Jewish thought to the world of Nature. In "Nature vs. Torah" by Jeremy Benstein, and "Judaism and Nature" by Eilon Schwartz, the authors go well...

Yad VaShem. (poem)
January 1, 1997... No rearing hooves threatened at the entrance. No soldiers strained in bronze. In fact, she saw only the line of visitors twisting with her around the pool of darkness punctured by a solitary flame. She strained to peel her pupils wide to trap the...

For and against the 'righteous Gentiles.' (non-Jewish defenders of Jewish lives during the Holocaust)
January 1, 1997... "Righteous Gentiles" is the common translation of the Hebrew "Hasidei Umoth Ha'olam" [literally, "Righteous among the Nations of the World"] - an honorific title now known mainly through its conferral by Yad Vashem on non-Jews who acted during...

A Jewish girl in Cracow, 1939. (poem)
January 1, 1997... The snow, like baking powder, dusts your smart beret, forehead and hair. How light your glance, as you stand in the slush and mud - button-rims with dark navels, lapels slanting into the collar, your bare right hand sliding into your left sleeve....

Rescue during the Holocaust - and today.
January 1, 1997... The medal awarded to rescuers by Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust memorial authority, bears the Talmudic inscription: "Whoever saves a single soul, it is as if he had saved the whole world." One interpretation of this saying envisions the world...

From the ashes.
January 1, 1997... It is Easter Sunday, April 1945, early in the morning, maybe just dawn. We stand still, like frozen grey statues. Seven hundred and thirty women, wrapped in wet, grey, threadbare blankets, standing in the rain. Our blankets hang over our heads,...

Seek My Face, Speak My Name: A Contemporary Theology.
January 1, 1997... Reviewed by ARNOLD JACOB WOLF Last year when I was telling the story of Abraham breaking his father's idols, a young child in our school burst into tears. "Abraham shouldn't have done that," he said. "Idols are wonderful. We have some in our...

The Renaissance of Jewish Culture in Weimar Germany.
January 1, 1997... Reviewed by ALAN LEVENSON Hitler's thousand-year Reich lasted twelve years, a shorter time than the Weimar Republic which preceded it. Yet a glance at the German history section of any American bookstore suggests an unending fascination with...

Unspoken Bequest: The Contribution of German Jews to German Culture.
January 1, 1997... Reviewed by ALAN LEVENSON Hitler's thousand-year Reich lasted twelve years, a shorter time than the Weimar Republic which preceded it. Yet a glance at the German history section of any American bookstore suggests an unending fascination with...

American Judaism in Transition.
January 1, 1997... Reviewed by LAWRENCE W. RAPHAEL In his recent book, Gerhard Falk notes that "Now, three generations after the Holocaust and five generations after the mass migrations from Eastern Europe, Judaism has reached the outer limits of secularization...

Justice.
January 1, 1997... Reviewed by LAWRENCE W. RAPHAEL In his recent book, Gerhard Falk notes that "Now, three generations after the Holocaust and five generations after the mass migrations from Eastern Europe, Judaism has reached the outer limits of secularization...

The Day the Rabbi Left Town.
January 1, 1997... Reviewed by LAWRENCE W. RAPHAEL In his recent book, Gerhard Falk notes that "Now, three generations after the Holocaust and five generations after the mass migrations from Eastern Europe, Judaism has reached the outer limits of secularization...