TEL AVIV — Three years ago, Jerusalem-based publisher Matthew Miller got a call from the head of Israel’s largest bookstore chain. Steimatsky chief executive Ayal Grinburg said he was watching ...

Why is Jacob the father of our people, the hero of our faith? We are “the congregation of Jacob,” “the children of Israel.” Yet it was Abraham who began the Jewish journey, Isaac who was willing to be ...

On the fifth yahrzeit of the passing of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, it is appropriate to recall his own words on the mitzvah of Yizkor, remembering the dead: “There is a specifically Jewish way of ...

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks was the former chief rabbi of the British Commonwealth and the author and editor of 40 books on Jewish thought. He died earlier this month.

As I was writing this essay, a newspaper headline caught my eye. It read: “The UK’s richest people have defied the double-dip recession to become even richer over the past year.”[1] This is in spite ...

It is by any standards a strange, almost incomprehensible law. Here it is in the form it appears in this week’s parsha: Remember what the Amalekites did to you along the way when you came out of Egypt ...

The parsha of Yitro records the revolutionary moment when G-d, Creator of Heaven and Earth, entered into a mutually binding agreement with a nation, the Children of Israel, an agreement we call a brit ...

In this week’s parsha, Moses has a breakdown. It is the lowest emotional ebb of his entire career as a leader. Listen to his words to G-d: “Why have You treated Your servant so badly? Why have I found ...

It is one of the greatest stories of all time, and Moses foresaw it three thousand years before it happened. Here he is speaking in this week’s parsha: See, I have taught you decrees and laws as the L ...

It was the emotional low of Moshe’s life. After the drama at Sinai, the revelation, the golden calf, the forgiveness, the building of the Tabernacle, and the book-length codes of purity and holiness, ...

In The Watchman’s Rattle, subtitled Thinking Our Way Out of Extinction, Rebecca Costa delivers a fascinating account of how civilizations die. When their problems become too complex, societies reach ...