Restore the Northwest Semitic Altar: On Using Archaeology in Jewish Practice

By Jonathan Katz July 8, 2014

  It happens frequently when I go to a new synagogue now. Someone gives a dvar Torah or a talk on the Torah portion, and uses a verse to talk about how different Jews were from all their surrounding peoples. Or there is a discussion of an Israel trip, in which the (justice-obstructing) magic of…

Read More...

This … Is … Jewish Identity!

By Carly Silver January 29, 2011

What if Helen of Troy was Jewish? Is it possible that Greek myth’s most legendary beauty was an MOT? That proposition is a bit far-fetched, but ancient sources record that the Spartans and Jews may have been related. Is that tale even true, though, or is it a product of later political impositions? According to…

Read More...

Jewish Identity, Then and Now

By Carly Silver January 14, 2011

I recently came across  Pilate’s Wife, a novel by Antoinette May about the wife of Pontius Pilate, the procurator of Judea who allegedly prosecuted Jesus. As a religion major fascinated by ancient history, I started researching this figure and what I found made me wonder about the Judaism of today vs. the days of yore,…

Read More...