SPRING 2026
What Punk Taught Me About Being Jewish
By Sara Lim Peering at the stage through cigarette smoke, purple-tinted by the overhead lights, I glimpse a figure stepping forward. Clutching a cloth garment, whose angular geometric patterns I immediately recognize, the figure proudly announces, “This scarf means a lot to me, to us,” and ties the…
My Qur’an Chevrutah
By Avi Friedman Recent events have not exactly made Jews enthusiastic about interfaith dialogue. If anything, they have made many of us more suspicious of engagement and less interested in being told that our deepest disagreements can be smoothed over by “holding space” for the other side and…
The Halakha Behind Israeli Food Technology
By Sadie Palker Israel, a global leader in innovation, is experimenting in food technology, particularly in the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Some recent projects include lab-grown meat, milk made using cow proteins, and gene-edited hens that only hatch female chicks. The country’s rabbinic authorities have generally…
Birding as an Antidote for Our Distracted Generation
By Elie Sasson The following statistics describe a single hobby: 37% of Americans engage in it, it had a total economic output of $279 billion in 2022, and it has a dedicated lobbying group that has existed for 121 years, named for a man born in Haiti in…
Are the Haredim Wrong? Rethinking the Haredi Draft Debate
By Avigail Kundin The ongoing debate over whether Haredi men must serve in the IDF is often framed as a conflict of fairness, economics, or national security. However, after examining the religious and social nuances of this crisis, I believe the fundamental error lies not with the Haredi…
The American Jew: A Halakhic Framework for Dual Loyalty
By Rachael Kopylov For much of history, Jewish communities have lived within host nations, either protected or ruled over by foreign powers. Because of this, diaspora communities have needed to balance maintenance of their separate religious identity with loyal participation in their host societies. This careful equilibrium of…
Wrestling with Creation: Judaism, Science, and American Freedom
By Miriam Siroky “In the beginning of God’s creation of the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1) In 21st-century America, the Genesis narrative is read against competing theories: The Big Bang (which posits a 13.8 billion-year-old universe), and a Darwinian view of humanity (as one contingent branch on…
Two Cheers for Freedom: A Call for Jewish American Communal Responsibility
By Simcha Rosenberg As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, it’s worth asking a question that doesn’t have an easy answer: has American freedom been good for Jewish people? The quick instinct is to respond emphatically in the affirmative. But dig a little deeper, and one realizes…
