The Koren Tanakh of the Land of Israel has just published the next volume in its ongoing series. Professor Joshua Berman presents a visual commentary on the slavery and exodus narratives, featuring ancient Egyptian images. Like the Shemot commentary of this excellent series, the vivid images with scholarly explanations bring the Egyptian setting of the Pesah story to life.
Since its founding in 2020, The Habura and its affiliated Da’at Press have distinguished themselves by producing original scholarship and translations that reflect the classical Geonic and Andalusian worldview. Committed to the highest values of Jewish tradition and scholarship, they make many previously obscure and inaccessible works available to the wider English-reading public.
On Friday, September 27, 1935, the Boston Jewish Advocate published an extensive interview with Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, who had recently returned to Boston following a four-month stay in Palestine. In what is arguably the most comprehensive articulation of his early Zionism, Rabbi Soloveitchik set forth in this interview his perspective on the role of Orthodoxy in Erets Yisrael.
Megillat Esther is among the most difficult biblical books to study anew, precisely because it is so familiar. Many assumptions accompany us through our study of the Megillah, occasionally clouding our perceptions of what is in the text and what is not.
Rabbi Dr. Benjamin Elton presents three pillars basic to the outlook of an Inclusive Orthodox
Rabbi. They are a route to combining openness with integrity.
Book Launch: The Grand Worldview of Rab Uziel will happen on Tuesday, February 17, 7pm at Shearith Israel, New York.
“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
—Albert Einstein
“Pyramids, cathedrals, and rockets exist not because of geometric theories of structures or thermodynamics, but because they were first a picture—literally a vision in the minds of those who built them.”
—Historian Eugene Ferguson
For the achievement of a moderate and observant next Jewish generation, there will need to be a synthesis of all the best qualities and approaches of like-minded approaches, from Modern Orthodox to Sephardic and beyond, creating a Jewish lifestyle that is neither extremely stringent or oppressive nor exceedingly indifferent to religious observance. I hope our religious leaders are up to the task.
On Wednesday night January 14, 2026, a group of Board members of the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals met with a group of Board members of the Peace Islands Institute, a Turkish Muslim organization. Rabbi Jospeph Potasnik, Executive Director of the New York Board of Rabbis, also participated in this gathering. The mentor and spiritual guide of Peace Islands Institute was the late Fethullah Gulen, a remarkable Muslim thinker who fostered respectful relations among all human beings.
In 1966, the Nobel Prize for literature was awarded to S. Y. Agnon. This was a major event for the Jewish world at large and for Israel in particular. Agnon was the first Israeli to win a Nobel in any field, and he remains the only Hebrew-language author ever to have received the Nobel Prize in literature. He died February 17, 1970 at age 82.