Rabbi Dr. Stuart Halpern is Senior Adviser to the Provost of Yeshiva University and Deputy Director of Y.U.’s Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought. His books include the newly released "Jewish Roots of American Liberty," "The Promise of Liberty: A Passover Haggada," "Esther in America," "Gleanings: Reflections on Ruth" and "Proclaim Liberty Throughout the Land: The Hebrew Bible in the United States."
Rereading the Talmud’s description of the Roman destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem this year for Tisha B’Av amidst the still-simmering ashes of Hamas’ October 7th devastation, one is struck by the slaughters’ similarities.
As analyzed by Gila Fine in her recently published “The Madwoman in the Rabbi’s Attic: Rereading the Women of the Talmud,” Marta’s ancient story offers a surprising sliver of hope amidst despair.
The Bible, and especially the Hebrew Bible, was the single most cited book during the Revolutionary era.
Bowing to that bovine is something we’ve never lived down.
Though some internal disagreements in the U.S. government remained, Truman recognized Israel minutes after its official founding on May 14, 1948.
Churchill rightly understood the miraculous nature of the Jewish story.
Like Israel’s Festival of Freedom, a holiday celebrated for generations in anticipation of an even greater future redemption, America’s Independence Day would point the way toward a brighter future.
Though she was not a general, parliamentarian or even soldier, her heroic actions have echoed for generations.
As Jews continue to navigate antisemitism from Hollywood to the Holy Land, we can draw inspiration from a very different Jewish founder, the biblical figure of Ruth, whose story we just read on the holiday of Shavuot.
