We’re pleased to bring you our second issue.  It’s filled with articles exploring the Jewish political tradition, perspectives on Jewish political power, and musings on the meaning of nationalism.  Don’t miss Rabbi Genack’s interview on his experience in American politics!

The whole issue is available here.

Articles are also available for individual download:

Professor Ruth Bevan: “Is There a Jewish Political Tradition?”

Ben Kandel:  “The Changing Role of Shimon and Levi” 1 and 2

Gilah Kletenik: “Israel: Jewish and Democratic?” 1 and 2

Simcha Gross: “The Jewish National Organism” 1 and 2

Yossi Steinberger: “Mrs. Prime Minister” 1 and 2

Elisheva Schlanger: “Women in Positions of Leadership: Melekh ve-Lo Malkah Reexamined” 1 and 2

Ari Lamm: Interview with Rabbi Genack 1 and 2

Zev Eleff: “The Students Versus the First Dean of Yeshiva College:  The Beginning of Commentator Politics” 1 and 2

Shlomo Zuckier: “Judaism: Ends and Means”

Ruthie Just Braffman: “Democracy Through Jewish History”

Alex Ozar: Review of Marc Shapiro’s Studies in Maimonidies and His Interpreters

Enjoy!

For all those whose appetites were whetted but not satiated by the version of Rav Reichman’s interview that appeared in Kol Hamevaser, we are happy to present the full version of the interview.  It is available in print form here, and the audio is available here.

We are exuberant to announce the publishing of the first issue of the 2008-2009 school year:  Spirituality: Teshuva and Tefillah.  It is available here.

Kol Hamevaser’s eighth and final issue of 2007-2008 is out now, on the topic of Israel at 60. Click here for the pdf.

Our 7th issue, on Emunah: what we believe, why we believe and how we believe is finally up!  Click here for the pdf.

Our 5th issue, dealing with the subject of Torah U’Madda, is now available in pdf format, here

The entire Kol Hamevaser staff would like to wish Managing Editor David Lasher a huge Mazal Tov on his engagement to Liz Sinnreich!  They should be zokheh to build a BAYIT NEEMAN BE-YISRAEL!!!

Issue 5, Torah U’Madda, featured an abridged article from Jaimie Fogel entitled “Between the Apple Tree: A Romance between Torah and English Literature.  This is the complete article…

People think they’re asking a polite question when they ask me about my major. It’s one of those questions frequently discussed within the first three minutes of meeting any college student and viewed by most as an easy way to gain insight into the personal interests of the stranger they have just met. But every time I am forced to repeat this small piece of personal information, I am thrown into a world of confusion; into a world of undefined phrases, unclear boundaries, and a choice fraught with guilt. I feel that I am at once in an intimate relationship with Judaic Studies and simultaneously on a self-explorative journey into the world of creative writing. This sometimes leaves me feeling as if I am involved in an illicit affair; cheating on one partner to find favor in the eyes of another.

I am far from the first individual to raise this issue and to try and grapple with the synthesis of Judaic and secular studies. Although I have found it puzzling that, while the phrase Torah U-Madda is a familiar and often clichéd one in the Yeshiva University student’s vocabulary, it is a concept which is rarely discussed or delineated for the contemporary student. It seems to be taken for granted that the average student on campus understands this notion and most certainly agrees with it, since that student has chosen to spend three or four years studying here. But upon asking students about the definition of Torah U-Madda, I think one might find that most students would not be able to answer anything deeper about the nuances of that ideology than “it values an integration of secular studies with the religious.” Dr Norman Lamm stressed this point in his address to the Yeshiva University alumni at the university’s 50th anniversary dinner. On May 20, 1979, he observed that, “ …we as an institution have to do more direction-giving. We must give our students more effective guidance, so that this confrontation between the Jewish and the general world will take place for them in a more well defined way1.”

Continue reading ‘Beneath the Apple Tree: A Romance Between Torah and English Literature- Expanded!’ »

Our forth issue - titled A Nation Unto Itself? - has been released.

Follow this link for the pdf, or read it online at the Commentator website.

By: Ari Lamm

This past Monday, the Oxford Union hosted a Free Speech Forum aptly termed “a night of discussion on the limits of free speech.” The prestigious debating society, which aspires to be “at the cutting edge of controversy,” chose to invite as participants in the forum, infamous Holocaust-denier David Irving, and Chairman of the British National Party (and also Holocaust-denier) Nick Griffin. This decision provoked a good deal of outrage and, as the always-excellent John Burns reports in the New York Times, resulted in about 300 protestors storming the Oxford Union debate hall and sitting on the head table in an attempt to prevent the forum from taking place. The forum was unable to proceed as planned, but was split into two smaller forums and continued in guarded rooms. Continue reading ‘The Right to Free Speech vs. The Right to an Audience’ »