June 2024
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Shavous – The Making of a Nation
“The Jewish People is a nation and became a nation only through and for the Torah; it possessed land and statehood only as instruments for translating the Torah into living reality: This is why Israel was a people even before it possessed land and statehood; this too is why Israel survived as a people even after its…
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Jerusalem Day – Profaning the Holy
Jerusalem, the Eternal City, one which fires the imagination of billions across the globe. A place where celestial meets terrestrial. A heavenly city. It was precisely that supernal quality that so irked early Zionist ideologues, themselves firmly planted in the muddy soils of 19th Century European nationalisms. The fact that the city seemed to move…
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“Ultra Orthodox,” A Verbal Scapegoat
The term “ultra-Orthodox” is, by design, a weapon of invalidation. The “ultra-Orthodox” refer to themselves as “Haredim” literally “those who tremble (before G-d)”. It’s meant as a goal to which one should aspire to. “Ultra-Orthodox” was a term invented, post-State of “Israel”, to clearly designate Haredim in the fledgling nation. They were “too much”, “ultra”…