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…

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Past Meets Future: Ground-Breaking Rabat Genizah Project Fueled by Students

By Derek M. Kwait June 17, 2014

A storied community in a room. Hand-written notes, wedding documents, and Mezuzahs piled everywhere. When Oren Kosansky discovered these items and more in bags and boxes in a small room in the old synagogue of Rabat, Morocco as a Fulbright Scholar in 2005, they would change his life and the lives of his future students…

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Digging Around for the Answer

By Carly Silver May 12, 2010

All Jews know the Temple Mount is sacred. Those who have been lucky enough to visit what remains in Jerusalem have prayed at the Wailing Wall, stuffed little messages into its crevices, and reveled in the holy atmosphere surrounding the ancient Jewish center of worship. For centuries, Jews have wanted to reclaim the Temple Mount,…

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More Than Archaeology

By Carly Silver February 24, 2010

King Solomon lives (maybe)! Well, he’s hardly the next Elvis come back from the dead, but it seems archaeologists have found something to say that Solomon actually existed. I can imagine biblical archaeologists salivating over this latest find, a wall dating back to three thousand years ago. If this wall is indeed that old, says…

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