ALT+SHIFT

Alt+SHIFT is the keyboard shortcut allowing us quick transition between input languages on our keyboards—for many readers of TRADITION that’s the move from Hebrew to English (and back again). Yitzchak Blau continues this Tradition Online series offering his insider’s look into trends, ideas, and writings in the Israeli Religious Zionist world helping readers from the Anglo sphere to Alt+SHIFT and gain insight into worthwhile material available only in Hebrew.

R. Haim Druckman’s “Be-Hayyil uve-Ru’ah” covers a wide range of military-related issues. The book is noteworthy because the author (one of the leading voices in Israeli Religious Zionism before his death in 2022) cannot be easily categorized as a hawk or dove. Yitzchak Blau returns for a supplemental entry in the Alt+SHIFT series.   
January 21, 2025

Alt+SHIFT: R. Druckman’s Moderation

Yair Sheleg, a respected journalist and author, has penned an important Hebrew book, tracing historically important developments in the Religious Zionist world and questioning its future directions. In English the book might be called “The Triple Thread,” and Yitzchak Blau reviews Sheleg’s assessment of how the combination of the three values of religion, nationalism, and humanism are or are not properly balanced by the community today.
December 30, 2024

Alt+SHIFT: The Triple Thread of Religious Zionism

The Hebrew anthology “One Day in October” (Maggid Books), now released in an English translation, is a powerful collection of forty stories from October 7th that inspires and depresses, fills the reader with hope, as it makes him or her cry. Yitzchak Blau shows how editors Yair Agmon and Oriya Mevorach skillfully transformed these accounts into narrative chapters which will serve as a “first draft” in documenting the stories of Simhat Torah 5784.  
September 22, 2024

REVIEW: One Day in October

The Hebrew anthology “One Day in October” is a powerful collection of forty stories from October 7th that inspires and depresses, fills the reader with hope, as it makes him or her cry. Yitzchak Blau shows how editors Yair Agmon and Oriyah Mevorach skillfully transformed these accounts into narrative chapters which will serve as a “first draft” in documenting the stories of Simhat Torah 5784.  
May 2, 2024

Alt+SHIFT: One Day in October

The Tradition Podcast catches up with some of our regular columnists to discuss how their work helps us expand our reach in shaping the communal conversation over the journal’s digital-direct platforms. Yitzchak Blau offers a review of what he has been exploring over 30 installments of his “Alt+SHIFT” column, now going on hiatus. What’s involved in the act of cultural “translation” of Hebrew content for an American audience—and why is it important? Later in the episode we meet Moshe Kurtz, who will be stepping in with a new series, “Unpacking the Iggerot,” exploring themes and topics at the intersection of halakha and hashkafa as they arise from the Iggerot Moshe of R. Moshe Feinstein.
March 3, 2024

PODCAST: Alt+SHIFT Exit Interview

Exempting Haredi yeshiva students from military service generated contention already at Israel’s founding, but the current war has more powerfully brought this issue to the fore. In this installment of Alt+SHIFT, Yitzchak Blau outlines the background of this governmental policy, some of the many attempts to change it, and the impact this has had on Israeli society. The various reasons why this issue may be coming to a head right now should be obvious to reader.
February 22, 2024

Alt+SHIFT: Haredi Draft

Prof. Benjamin Brown surveys both the history and contemporary role of Haredi society. In a comprehensive and sweeping volume, he provides chapters on Mitnagdim, Hasidim, and Sefardim, and also draws distinctions between mainstream Haredim, moderates, and extremists. Yitzchak Blau, suggests that although some of the material may be well-known to followers of the Haredi world, Brown adds new details and fresh insights.
February 8, 2024

Alt+SHIFT: Guide to Haredi Society

Yonatan Feintuch’s “Panim el Panim” makes a major contribution to the growing world of aggadic study. He shows how paying attention to halakhic and aggadic context enhances aggadic interpretation and reveals that literary sensitivity to intertextuality, leitwort, and word-plays enriches our reading. Beyond a literary reading, Feintuch outlines varying models for how an aggadic text can impact on the legal discussions in the Talmud.
January 25, 2024

Alt+SHIFT: Panim el Panim

Contemporary Western sexual ethics clashes sharply with traditional Jewish approaches leading many Orthodox authors to address this conflict. In a noteworthy new book, Oriya Mevorach adds a fresh approach—by finding fault with some traditional Jewish discourse about sexuality and at the same time offering a sharp critique of popular Western approaches. In Alt+SHIFT Yitzhak Blau shows how Mevorach’s helpful categories for mapping out the terrain of the discussion are themselves an important contribution to this discussion.
January 11, 2024

Alt+SHIFT: Ma At Mevakeshet?

How empty is the old “empty wagon” metaphor for the religious-secular status quo in Israel? If both sides of the debate understand the other is here to stay, what options are open for finding a middle ground—especially as Jewish learning and culture should be valued by both? How much diversity can and should tolerance tolerate? Until a tragic injury, Prof. Aviezer Ravitzky was among Israel’s most prominent public intellectuals—Yitzchak Blau surveys some of Ravitzky’s writings on these subjects in Alt+SHIFT.
December 7, 2023

Alt+SHIFT: Aviezer Ravitzky

R. Yakov Nagen’s prolific output includes books on the Mishna, spirituality, attitudes to other faiths, and a volume profiled here by Yitzchak Blau. Nagen combines academic tools with a search for religious meaning and he successfully integrates the worlds of mysticism and rationalism. This volume, beyond the specific thesis concerning the holiday of Sukkot, is methodologically interesting, arguing that philosophical explanations of mitzvot may seem like an overly speculative endeavor but demonstrating that we can utilize halakhic details to more rigorously establish a hashkafic interpretation.
November 23, 2023

Alt+SHIFT: Water, Creation, Immanence

The family of R. Benny Kalmanzon, Rosh Yeshiva at Otniel, has known far too much loss, tragedy, and suffering—in the years leading up to this war and especially in the past month. After his son was killed in battle on Simhat Torah, R. Benny spoke with Makor Rishon, and what he says from within his mourning is noteworthy, impressive, and instructive. Yitzchak Blau shares what he learned from R. Benny’s quiet, heroic response.  
November 9, 2023

Alt+SHIFT: R. Kalmanzon’s Quiet Heroism

Lt. Amitai Granot was killed on the northern front last week. Days earlier, his father R. Tamir Granot, Rosh Yeshivat Orot Shaul in Tel Aviv, R. Tamir published an essay in Makor Rishon about the implications of the Hamas massacre, the meaning of an old-world pogrom in modern Israel, and the task before us as a nation. Yitzchak Blau presents this summary with the hope that these efforts honor the Granot family and the memory of Amitai z”l.
October 26, 2023

Alt+SHIFT: The Hope of Tamir Granot

Twenty years ago Israel ranked 28th in the world in proportional live kidney donations. By 2020, the WHO ranked Israel the world leader in altruistic live donor kidney transplants How did this come about and how did attitudes particularly within the religious community change? Apparently, a few good and dedicated people can change the world.
September 21, 2023

Alt+SHIFT: The Gift of Life

The content of Israeli television and films reveals dynamics working in the Jewish State. Who is being featured and how they are being portrayed help tell the tale of Israeli society. Yitzchak Blau’s Alt+SHIFT offering works off recent cultural surveys and criticism on the growing presence of religious characters in movies and TV alongside a recent documentary series on Israeli secularism.
September 7, 2023

Alt+SHIFT: Frum Film

Journalist Yair Ettinger’s recent book, “Prumim,” provides a window into many debates raging in today’s Dati Leumi world, including partnership minyanim, ascending the Temple Mount, LGBT issues, attitude to the Chief Rabbinate, and women enlisting in the army. Yitzchak Blau’s Alt+SHIFT column suggests the book will be particularly interesting to our readers for its analysis of parallel phenomena in American Modern Orthodoxy.
August 24, 2023

Alt+SHIFT: Prumim

With no moral equivalencies being made to Palestinian terror attacks against Jews, Roi Sharon’s journalistic book forces us to confront acts of Jewish terror aimed at Arabs. Yitzchak Blau’s Alt+SHIFT review focuses on the wild weeds in our own garden, a dangerous and evil growth that needs to be opposed and eradicated. While the overwhelming majority of the Religious Zionist world opposes this phenomenon, it is time to admit that we have a serious problem.
August 10, 2023

Alt+SHIFT: Jewish Terror

In R. Benny Kalmanzon’s “Al Ma Avda haAretz” the recently retired Rosh Yeshiva of Otniel analyzes the aggadot in Gittin about the Second Temple’s destruction and makes an important contribution to the growing world of aggadic study. Yitzchak Blau’s Alt+SHIFT installment suggests the book will enhance one’s understanding and appreciation of these texts in advance of Tisha B’Av.
July 20, 2023

Alt+SHIFT: On Aggadat HaHurban

For today’s fast of 17th Tammuz, Yitzchak Blau discusses the affecting Israeli film “Agadat Hurban” (Legends of Destruction), which captivated audiences with its release two years ago. Aside from its appropriateness as we commence the Three Weeks, Blau argues that it is even timelier in light of current civil strife in the Jewish State.
July 6, 2023

Alt+SHIFT: Agadat Hurban

R. Ilay Ofran of Kibbutz Yavneh, head of the mekhina Ruah haSadeh, and a psychologist, has become an important voice in the Religious Zionist community. His recent book, profiled by Yitzchak Blau in this week’s Alt+SHIFT, addresses the challenges involved in maintaining our religious tradition in the contemporary world.
June 15, 2023

Alt+SHIFT: New World Perplexed

Ruth Calderon captivated Israel and the Jewish world with her maiden Knesset speech in which she taught a piece of Talmud, and offered a plea that Gemara take a greater role in Israeli civic life. Her book of aggadic analyses furthers this goal by encouraging secular Israelis to look more into texts which animated their ancestors; religious readers who are already familiar with many of these texts will be similarly rewarded for their openness by encountering Calderon’s sensitive and often insightful readings. Yitzchak Blau reviews “Alfa Beta Talmudi” in this week’s Alt+SHIFT.
June 1, 2023

ALT+SHIFT: Alfa Beta Talmudi

In reviewing Malka Puterkovsky’s “Mehalekhet be-Darka,” Yitzchak Blau profiles a work of halakhic literature remarkable for its author, genre, and sensitivities. That a volume of “teshuvot” (even if not adhering to the classical form) penned by a woman garnered critique from the  right-wing is not surprising, and sheds some light on the path breaking accomplishment.  
May 18, 2023

Alt+SHIFT: Mehalekhet be-Darka

Michal Tikochinsky’s book on the important 19th-century rabbinic work Minhat Hinukh fills in a gap in academic Jewish scholarship, and offers a sweeping portrait of a work much treasured in the beit midrash. Yitzchak Blau returns with Alt+Shift, helping the Anglo sphere to gain insight into worthwhile material available only in Hebrew.
April 27, 2023

Alt+SHIFT: Minhat Hinukh Scholarship

In reviewing R. Yoel Bin-Nun’s “Zakhor veShamor,” Yitzchak Blau demonstrates how the book’s topic plays to the author’s strengths and interests, as it explores the Jewish calendar and holiday cycle through the prism of the agricultural reality in the Land of Israel. In its pages we encounter one of our era’s greatest teachers of Tanakh apply his fertile mind to scripture, Jewish history, and our current situation. 
March 30, 2023

Alt+SHIFT: Yoel Bin-Nun’s Holiday Duality

Prof. Shalom Rosenberg z”l, who passed away two weeks ago, taught Jewish philosophy at Hebrew University and was a public intellectual and an important voice in the Religious Zionist world. Reviewing some of his essays for this week’s Alt+SHIFT, Yitzchak Blau offers an appreciation for Rosenberg’s contribution to the intellectual atmosphere of our community.
March 23, 2023

Alt+SHIFT: Shalom Rosenberg z”l

What does the miraculous revival of Hebrew in the 20th century say about larger trends in Jewish life and nationhood? A new volume on Hebrew’s relationship to Jewish culture and scholarship, and the unlikely story of its reawakening, explores these questions from both historical and linguistic angles, and may make us question the implications of the state of Hebrew fluency among Anglo-Jewry today. Yitzchak Blau returns with a new installment of Alt+SHIFT.
March 16, 2023

Alt+SHIFT: Why Speak Hebrew?

R. Avraham Stav offers weekly insights and moral messages we can glean from all areas of popular culture. Yitzchak Blau, a self-professed skeptic about TV’s worth, along with other aspects of popular culture, admits that he finds Stav’s mining of television and movies to be rewarding—in this week’s Alt+SHIFT. 
February 23, 2023

Alt+SHIFT: Avraham Stav’s Pop-Culture Criticism

Rav Shach’s long impact on Israeli Haredism, and by extension on the political culture of the State, two decades after his passing is the subject of this week’s Alt+SHIFT. Yitzchak Blau considers how the hashkafa and halakhic stances of a person intersect in shaping personality and policy.
February 16, 2023

Alt+SHIFT: Rav Shach as Ish HaHashkafa

Natanel Ellinson’s portrait of divisions in Israeli society suggests a rift between Yehudim (Jews) and Yisraelim (Israelis), each with its own orientation, culture, and values. In this week’s Alt+SHIFT Yitzchak Blau admits some of the diagnosis is useful but overlooks subtleties that we dare not ignore.
February 9, 2023

Alt+SHIFT: A Brief History of Israeliness

In this week’s Alt+SHIFT installment Yitzchak Blau profiles the columns and commentary of Eden Abitbol, whose writing opens a window into Haredi yeshiva life, its struggles and unique culture – both the manifest and suppressed components of how bachurim seek and maintain individuality within the yeshiva’s regimented collective atmosphere. 
February 2, 2023

Alt+SHIFT: Tales Out of School

The mass of Israelis trekking to Uman for Rosh Hashana includes secularists, National Religious types, Sefardim, Haredim, and Hasidim of nearly every variety. In his interesting book, Dr. Moshe Weinstock analyzes this phenomenon and provides important insight to help understand how the pilgrimage is a reflection of trends in Israeli society. Yitzchak Blau poses questions about it in this week’s Alt+SHIFT.
January 26, 2023

Alt+SHIFT: Journey to Uman

Surveying a recent issue of the Hebrew periodical “Deot,” Yitzchak Blau continues to “translate” contemporary Hebrew commentary on communal concerns in our Alt+SHIFT series. In this installment he looks at writers who question the effectiveness of merging conservative cultural thought and Religious Zionism.
January 19, 2023

Alt+SHIFT: Deot #102

In this week’s Alt+SHIFT, “translating” trends in Israeli intellectual life from right to left, Yitzchak Blau presents ideas from Chaim Navon’s Jewish critique of postmodernism’s most deleterious effects of civilization. We each choose our own destiny, but we attempt to abandon our “communities of fate” at our own peril.
January 12, 2023

Alt+SHIFT: Striking Roots

Continuing his discussion of the Hardal world, Yitzchak Blau’s newest installment of Alt+SHIFT profiles some of the writings of R. Tzvi Tau. Blau calls out a worldview that sees all ideological opponents as sinister people without redeeming qualities attempting to destroy Jewish values. 
January 5, 2023

Alt+SHIFT: R. Tau and the Culture Wars

Kicking off our new Alt+SHIFT series, helping to “translate” trends in Israeli religious life for readers of TraditionOnline, Yitzchak Blau presents Yair Sheleg’s recent profile of the Haredi Leumi (nationalist ultra-Orthodox camp).
December 29, 2022

Alt+SHIFT: HaHardalim 

Alt+SHIFT is the keyboard shortcut allowing us quick transition between input languages on our keyboards—for many readers of TRADITION that’s the move from Hebrew to English (and back again). Yitzchak Blau introduces a new TraditionOnline series offering his insider’s look into trends, ideas, and writings in the Israeli Religious Zionist world helping readers from the Anglo sphere to Alt+SHIFT and gain insight to worthwhile material available only in Hebrew.
December 27, 2022

Alt+SHIFT: Series Introduction

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