March 3, 2024
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.
February 22, 2024
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 8, 2024
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.
January 25, 2024
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.