This article exploits the unique consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak to examine whether time constraints drive the unequal division of unpaid labor between dual-earner couples in Israel. Using the first wave of longitudinal household data that was collected in Israel since the outbreak of the pandemic, we focused on 325 dual-earner couples who stayed employed during the first lockdown. By employing OLS regressions, we examined the association between changes in employment hours and changes in unpaid labor for (...) partnered men and women. Strong evidence was found for a gendered translation of the time constraints mechanism: A decrease in hours of paid work is related to an increase in hours of care for children among men and women, but time devoted to housework increased only among women. We conclude that time constraints that resulted from the dramatic effect of the first lockdown on paid and unpaid work in Israel did not significantly change the gender division of unpaid housework but did change the distribution of childcare. The theoretical implications of this conclusion for future research are discussed. (shrink)

Jewish business ethics in Israel addresses two major sources of economic immorality—unbounded desire and fear of economic uncertainty—through enforcement and spiritual education. Business is seen as a path to sanctity, when time is set apart for religious study, wealth is seen as originating from God, the vulnerable are protected against fraud and theft, charity is seen as an obligation, and mercy towards debtors is tempered by justice.

Jewish business ethics in Israel addresses two major sources of economic immorality—unbounded desire and fear of economic uncertainty—through enforcement and spiritual education. Business is seen as a path to sanctity, when time is set apart for religious study, wealth is seen as originating from God, the vulnerable are protected against fraud and theft, charity is seen as an obligation, and mercy towards debtors is tempered by justice.

The economic shutdown and national lockdown following the outbreak of COVID-19 have increased demand for unpaid work at home, particularly among families with children, and reduced demand for paid work. Concurrently, the share of the workforce that has relocated its workplace to home has also increased. In this article, we examine the consequences of these processes for the allocation of time among paid work, housework, and care work for men and women in Israel. Using data on 2,027 Israeli adults (...) whom we followed since the first week of March, we focus on the effect of the second lockdown in Israel on the gender division of both paid and unpaid work. We find that as demand for housework caused by the lockdown increases, women—especially with children—increase their housework much more than men do, particularly when they work from home. The consequences of work from home and other flexible work arrangements for gender inequality within the family are discussed. (shrink)

The Jewish emancipation in Germany brought about a fundamental change in the position of Jews in state and society, leading to a rapprochement between Jews and their non-Jewish surroundings. For religious Jews, this transition into neutral society brought up fundamental theological questions: How is emancipation to be evaluated from a religious perspective? What is the appropriate relationship with the state? How should Jews interact with Gentiles? How could Jews integrate into society without denying the singularity of Israel and without (...) neglecting their religious obligations? Rabbi Elias Gutmacher was one of the religious leaders of Judaism in Germany whose scholarship was deeply concerned with such questions. Gutmacher was from Grätz in the Posen region and became primarily known as a cabbalist. The following article summarizes his views on the topic, which can be found in his literary oeuvre and most of all in his sermons. (shrink)

The years following Israel’s founding were formative ones for the development of philosophy as an academic discipline in this country. During this period, the distinction between philosophy seen as contiguous with the humanities and social sciences, and philosophy seen as adjacent to the natural and exact sciences began to make its presence felt in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. This distinction, which was manifest in the curriculum, was by no means unique to the Hebrew University, but reflected the broader (...) bifurcation between two schools of Western philosophy in the twentieth century. In English-speaking countries, it is generally referred to as the divide between analytic and continental philosophy. What was special about the situation at the Hebrew University, however, was that the split manifested itself in a rather small department, being embodied, basically, in one prominent representative of each school – Nathan Rotenstreich and Yehoshua Bar-Hillel. This article will focus on some key aspects of the lives and thought of Rotenstreich and Bar-Hillel. It will address their philosophical maturation as S.H. Bergmann’s students, their views on the goals of twentieth-century philosophy, on the philosopher’s role in public life, and the circumstances under which they started teaching in Jerusalem right after the founding of the State of Israel. (shrink)

Avi Sagi is professor of philosophy at Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel, and senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, Israel. A philosopher, literary critic, scholar of cultural studies, historian and philosopher of halakhah, public intellectual, social critic, and educator, Sagi has written most lucidly on the challenges that face humanity, Judaism, and Israeli society today. As an intertextual thinker, Sagi integrates numerous strands within contemporary philosophy, while critically engaging Jewish and non-Jewish philosophers. Offering (...) an insightful defense of pluralism and multiculturalism, his numerous writings integrate philosophy, religion, theology, jurisprudence, psychology, art, literature, and politics, charting a new path for Jewish thought in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

Menachem M. Kellner is an American-born scholar of Jewish philosophy, an educator, and a public intellectual who lives in Israel. For over three decades he taught at the University of Haifa, where he held the Sir Isaac and Lady Edith Wolfson Chair of Jewish Religious Thought as well as several high-level administrative positions. Currently he teaches Jewish philosophy at Shalem College, Israel's first liberal arts college, which seeks to integrate Western and Jewish texts. Trained in ethics and political (...) philosophy, Kellner specializes in medieval Jewish philosophy, arguing that Maimonides' rationalist universalism should serve as the ideal for contemporary Jewish life. Creatively fusing Zionism, modern Orthodoxy, and democracy, his vision of Judaism is open to and engaged with the modern world. (shrink)

Medications of choice, necessary supplies, and evidence-based health care now seem like luxuries. The contrast between my experience at a well-funded health unit and the Lev El Lev (“heart to heart”) African Refugee Clinic in Tel Aviv, Israel, is staggering. The complex personal, social, health, psychological, educational, and economic difficulties create a unique ethical environment for the health care provider.

This article reviews four recent books that all purport to deal with politics in ancient Israel. Despite dealing with the Bible, they are all saturated with modern concerns.

In this response to the essays in the symposium on my book Meir Kahane: The Public Life and Political Thought of an American Jewish Radical I tried to clarify and expand some of the thoughtful and astute themes in the remarks of my interlocutors, especially about how the book was not intended to be about one figure but rather an intervention into postwar American and Israeli Judaism through the lens of a maligned figure who is ignored by most American (...) Jews and demonized by most Israeli Jews. Meir Kahane remains present because he never went away. And he never went away because he offered solutions that, while unpopular and egregious, continue to resonate when Jews begin to feel unstable about their place in America or Israel. He is the dark underside of the modern Jewish project that will not go away. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 24, Issue 1, pp 122 - 148 This paper examines the tension between philosophy and praxis in the thought of Aaron David Gordon. Highlighting the methodical character of Gordon’s philosophical understanding of human existence in terms of “man-in-nature,” I attempt to show that while his philosophy was initially meant to influence the construction of society and culture in the Land of Israel at the beginning of the twentieth century, it is particularly relevant with regard to (...) contemporary philosophical questions concerning Jewish and human existence in every area in which the concept of humanity plays a central role, such as education, conservation, social justice, and international relations. (shrink)

One of the most resolute dichotomies in the modern and contemporary study of religion is that between good/bad religions. The bases for making such judgments are fluid, but the outcome is generally recognizable; “good” religions and good religious practitioners adhere to the expectations and norms of the bourgeois modern. The reasons for the endurance of the good/bad religion dichotomy are historical, rooted in the rise of the study of religion as an academic discipline, globally and in the United States; economic, (...) reflecting recent trends in giving to higher education; and ideological. But in Meir Kahane, Shaul Magid upends the good/bad distinction, using a “bad” religious actor, in this case, a virulent anti‐Black racist, demagogue, and violent street fighter as a lens through which to explore recent Jewish history in the US and Israel. Magid's steadfast refusal to render Kahane safely other to this broader religious story is a powerful challenge to scholars of religion. (shrink)

Shaul Magid's Meir Kahane: The Public Life and Political Thought of an American Jewish Radical (2021) stresses the American character of Kahane's thought. This review analyzes this claim in two ways. First, it offers a transnational perspective on Kahane's philosophy. Second, it examines Magid's concept of neo‐Kahanism in light of Kahane's legacy in Israel.

Shaul Magid's Meir Kahane: The Public Life and Political Thought of an American Jewish Radical (2021) has the potential to urge American and Israeli Jews to “own” Meir Kahane and hold him up as a mirror reflecting the toxic and tragic dimensions of modern Jewish history. Such a look in the mirror can only happen once Jews see Palestinian suffering as central to the building of the state of Israel and also how they are complicit and implicated (...) in such suffering. (shrink)

This article deals with Rabbi Meir Kahane’s assimilation doctrine, an under-studied aspect of previous published research on Kahane. The present study suggests that this doctrine is catalysed by a palingenetic myth of decline and rebirth, which also catalyses Kahane’s ideology. By proposing this, this article aims to offer a new perspective on the understanding of what drives Kahane’s ideology. It is further suggested that Kahane’s palingenetic myth is in part built around a myth of ‘intraracial antagonism’ between the American (...) Jewish Establishment and the ‘common Jew’. Following Bruce Lincoln’s theory of myth, it is here contended that Kahane’s assimilation doctrine is presented as ‘ideology in narrative form’. The study surveys the alleged causes and effects of assimilation, and what solutions Kahane presents to put an end to it. Among the alleged causes, Kahane singles out the AJE’s purported gutting of Jewish religious education, which is said to have alienated Jewish youth from their religion. Aside from curtailing Jewish continuity, Kahane for example identifies Jews engaging in social causes that allegedly run counter to Jewish interests as one alleged effect of assimilation. To end assimilation Kahane promotes a solution of campaigning in Jewish communities to ultimately put a stop to intermarriage, to instil hadar and ahavat Yisroel among Jews by the means of a regenerated Jewish educational system, and to encourage Jews to ‘return’ to Israel. (shrink)

This collection of essays is the first of its kind to focus on the relationship between composition and identity. Twelve original articles--written by internationally renowned scholars and rising stars in the field--argue for and against the controversial doctrine that composition is identity.--Provided by publisher.