On June 3, an Egyptian policeman crossed the border into Israel and killed three soldiers. Jonathan Schanzer and Natalie Ecanow urge President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to respond by visiting the Jewish state as a show of goodwill: Such a dramatic gesture is not without precedent: in 1997, a Jordanian soldier opened fire on a group of Israeli schoolgirls visiting the “Isle of Peace,” a parcel of farmland previously under Israeli jurisdiction that Jordan leased back to Israel as part of the Oslo peace process. In a remarkable display of humanity, King Hussein of Jordan, who had only three years earl ..read more

Earlier this year, respected Israeli economists and businesspeople issued dire warnings about the potential effects of judicial reform on their country’s economy. They are now citing a major decline in venture-capital investment over the past year and Moody’s recent decision to downgrade the Israeli economic outlook from “positive” to “stable” as evidence that they were correct. Michael Fertik is not convinced: Israel is in a superb position—probably the best globally, except for the United States—to ride the current and future waves of venture-capital allocation. Israeli startups have never b ..read more

On May 30, two terrorists shot and killed Meir Tamari, a father of two, as he was driving. He was the twentieth person to die in a terrorist attack this year. Yoni Ben Menachem comments: The attack was carried out by the “rapid-reaction unit” of the “Tulkarm Battalion,” a joint terrorist body of the [Iran-backed] Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement. . . .  Islamic Jihad sources say that the murder of the Israeli citizen Meir Tamari is part of the organization’s revenge response to IDF activity in [the village of] Nur Shams and to the targ ..read more

In all of post-biblical Jewish history, there are few figures that rival the rabbi, philosopher, and physician Moses Maimonides (1138–1204) in stature. The Golden Path: Maimonides across Eight Centuries, on display at the Yeshiva University Museum, begins with manuscripts and annotations in the great rabbi’s own hand, and continues with numerous editions of his works as well as such related items as a handwritten text by Isaac Newton that relies heavily on Maimonides’ treatise on astronomy. Edward Rothstein writes in his review: From more recent centuries we see a 1784 Hebrew prayer composed i ..read more

What were 27,000 ḥaredi men doing in a sports arena in Philadelphia last week, and what does it reveal about their world ..read more

Last week, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released its quarterly report on the Iranian nuclear program. According to an analysis by the Institute for Science and International Security, the Islamic Republic can now produce enough weapons-grade uranium to manufacture “five nuclear weapons in one month, seven in two months, and a total of eight in three months.” The IAEA also has reason to believe that Tehran has further nuclear capabilities that it has successfully hidden from inspectors. David M. Weinberg is concerned about Washington’s response: Believe it or not, the Biden adm ..read more

Will shnatz have arrived on the Hebrew scene just in time for it to denote something that no longer exists ..read more

According to a 2020 study, 2.1 million American Jews describe themselves as Reform, making the denomination—as it has been historically—the largest in the U.S. Yet Ammiel Hirsch, the rabbi of a major synagogue in Manhattan, believes the movement stands at a crossroads. He set the problem before an audience at a recent conference: I fear that we are losing the soul of the Reform movement. . . . I worry—deeply—that increasing numbers of liberal young adults, including those entering Reform leadership, express indifference to Israel, or worse: opposition not to the policies of Israeli governments ..read more

Last month, the U.S. hosted talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan, two countries that have been in a formal state of war since before they officially gained independence from the USSR. The talks were then continued under EU auspices in Moldova. Resolving this conflict could have important ramifications for Israel, Iran, the U.S., and Russia. To Gerald Steinberg, Baku and Yerevan—as well as the American mediators—could learn some useful lessons from the Egypt-Israel negotiations of the 1970s: In both conflicts, the exploration of the potential for a negotiated resolution that satisfies the vital ..read more

Born in Frankfurt-am-Main, Moses Schreiber (1762–1839) spent the better part of his career as the rabbi of Pressburg (today Bratislava), and is best known as a fierce opponent of early Reform Judaism, a precursor of Ḥaredism, and the author of the talmudic work Ḥatam Sofer. Less known is his interest in kabbalah, astrology, and the latest advances of European scientists—subjects that in the early part of his life did not seem so far apart as they do now. Maoz Kahana presents a study of this aspect of Schreiber’s intellectual life: Schreiber’s teenage years, which he spent [as a student of] Rab ..read more