Reconciling Modern Biblical Scholarship With Traditional Orthodox Belief

Who wrote the Torah? An unlikely group of Orthodox scholars has launched a website that gets to the heart of Jewish tenets.

By Yair Rosenberg for Tablet

“Virtually all of the stories in the Torah are ahistorical,” declares a manifesto posted in July on TheTorah.com. “Given the data to which modern historians have access,” the essay explains, “it is impossible to regard the accounts of mass Exodus from Egypt, the wilderness experience or the coordinated, swift, and complete conquest of the entire land of Canaan under Joshua as historical.” Not only did the events in the Garden of Eden and the Flood of Noah never transpire, readers are informed, but “Abraham and Sarah are folkloristic characters; factually speaking, they are not my ancestors or anyone else’s.”

Such sweeping sentiments might be expected from an academic scholar, or perhaps a critic of fundamentalist religion. But the author of this manifesto is an Orthodox rabbi named Zev Farber. The essay, and much of the work of TheTorah.com, is an attempt by dissident Orthodox rabbis and professors to reconcile the findings of modern biblical scholarship with traditional Jewish belief.

This project is not new, but it has bedeviled American Jewry in different ways. Within liberal denominations, while some intellectuals and theologians have grappled with the questions posed by the field of biblical criticism—which sees the Torah as a man-made, composite work produced over time, rather than simply revealed to Moses by God at Sinai—the results have rarely filtered down to synagogue congregants and day-school pupils. Within Orthodoxy, meanwhile, the findings of academia have often met with outright rejection.

By launching TheTorah.com, Rabbi David Steinberg—a former outreach rabbi for the ultra-Orthodox organization Aish HaTorah—and Brandeis Bible professor Marc Brettler, also an Orthodox Jew, set out to challenge this state of affairs, provoking significant controversy within their own community.

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Alan Berliner’s Newest Cinematic Poem Reflects on a Relative With Alzheimer’s

‘First Cousin Once Removed’ shows the complexity of a man at the end of his life and the ravages—and blessings—of memory loss

By Vox Tablet

For nearly 30 years, the filmmaker Alan Berliner has made uniquely personal documentaries that mine his life and the lives of his relatives, chipping away at seemingly routine stories to find a more precise, poetic, and nuanced narrative. His films display a relentless curiosity about the people closest to him—territory fraught with pitfalls.

Berliner’s 1996 film Nobody’s Business examined his father, a lonely, divorced, retired salesman. Throughout the documentary, we hear the senior Berliner barking his objections with “my life is nothing!” and “you’re boring the shit out of me!” But as details of his past are revealed, Berliner’s father becomes a complex, lively figure in history, while, at every turn, the audience is compelled to adjust their perception of him.

In Berliner’s newest film, First Cousin Once Removed, the filmmaker again focuses on family: in this case Edwin Honig, a relative, poet, friend, and mentor with Alzheimer’s Disease. Because of—and despite—his illness, Edwin remains a surprisingly deep and thoughtful person whose views of the world color his interactions with Alan. Sometimes, Edwin is unable even to speak. The film is painful, beautiful, and, as with Berliner’s previous works, makes us consider again and again what we think of this man, and of the value of memory.

First Cousin Once Removed will have its broadcast premiere on Monday, Sept. 23, on HBO. Berliner joins Tablet arts and culture editor Matthew Fishbane to discuss how Edwin Honig viewed his loss of memory, how forgetting can sometimes be a blessing, and how Berliner understands his own work as a way to stave off a similar fate.

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A perfect time to holiday, but Syria jitters put chill on Sukkot travel plans

Sukkot comes early this year and vacation reservations have been heavy. But worries about a U.S. attack are deterring some travelers.

By Rina Rozenberg for Haaretz

The children are barely back in school and another holiday season is already upon us. For many families, whether they vacation abroad over Sukkot, which begins on the evening of September 18, depends on what happens in Washington.

"Everything now depends on whether or not the U.S. attacks Syria,"says Eyal Kashdan, CEO of the Flying Carpet travel agency. “The proximity of the holidays to the summer, with the weather perfect and the fact that some people put off their vacation to Sukkot, means a very good holiday – on condition that the uncertainty dissipates.”

Reservations began falling as Washington put on the heat at the end of August, Kashdan says, and many families are still waiting to see what happens.

Arkia Deputy CEO David Mahlev says his airline has added four flights to Rhodes on the intermediate days of Sukkot, with families typically travelling for five nights on average. That is up from three last year, because the holiday falls in the middle of September, which promises better weather than last year, when it came at the beginning of October. On the other hand, strong demand means that prices on packages are higher by several percent than last year.

As for vacationing in Israel, as of last week there were still plenty of hotel rooms available throughout the country and family suites weren't hard to find. But this situation isn't expected to last, according to industry sources.

"That's how it always is: It's only when we get close to Sukkot that Israelis start thinking about it and begin booking, especially in Eilat," says Yael Tamir, vice president at Gulliver Tourism. "Even more so this year, because the holidays are close to August and many people still haven't absorbed the fact that the they are already upon us. I'm sure that after Rosh Hashanah things will start to wake up."

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JTA 5773: It was a good year for some

By Ami Eden for JTA

NEW YORK (JTA) — Here’s a list of folks who had plenty of people shepping nachos this past year:

Yityish Aynaw became the first black winner of the Miss Israel competition entitling her to compete for the title of Miss World in September in Indonesia. Aynaw, who came with her family from Ethiopia at age 12, cited Martin Luther King, Jr. as one of her heroes.

Jack Antonoff, who attended Solomon Schechter as a kid, won two Grammy Awards. Lena Dunham, who gave us a Camp Ramah reference on “Girls,” took home two Golden Globes. It gets better: They’re an item.

It’s official: Maria Chudnovsky is a genius.

Drake, we always loved you. But it’s nice to have the Grammy too.

Rachel Kohl Finegold, Ruth Balinsky Friedman, and Abby Brown Scheier sparked headlines in May, becoming the first graduates of Yeshivat Maharat. While the decision to ordain women as spiritual and halachic authorities is still generating a great deal of controversy and criticism, it also underscored the gains that women scholars are making in many parts of the Orthodox world.

As far as we can tell, in the storied history of kosher diner owners, brothers Ken and Daniel Hechtman are the only ones to have saved several people from a fiery wreck.

Aly Raisman had us with Hava Nagila and her gold medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics. But she took our devotion to new heights with her agreeing to light the torch at this summer’s Maccabiah Games.

What would this list be without new additions to the list of Jewish Nobel laureates — welcome to the club Serge Haroche, Robert Lefkowitz and Alvin Roth.

Many of the 70% of American Jews who voted for President Obama would have experienced a meltdown long before Election Day without Nate Silver’s unwavering insistence that the incumbent had it in the bag. In the end, the numbers-crunching guru ran the table, accurately predicting the winner in all 50 states — and scoring a victory for math over political spin, blow-hard punditry and partisan wishful thinking.

In an era when paranoia and conspiracy theories often hold sway in the anti-Obama camp, Wall Street Journal columnist Bret Stephens offered up a refreshingly coherent and rational critique of the administration’s policies. The former Jerusalem Post editor was rewarded with a Pulitzer Prize for his efforts.

Upstart Israeli News Channel i24 Takes Aim at CNN, the BBC—and Al Jazeera

Executives say they’re reaching 350 million viewers worldwide, and none of them in Hebrew

By Debra Kamin for Tablet Magazine

The headquarters of i24news, Israel’s first international news channel, is still unfinished. Outside, the glass building in Tel Aviv’s newly redeveloped Jaffa port sparkles, but inside the cavernous blue-lit newsroom, where broadcasts launched in mid-July, wires and beams are still exposed. But the ongoing construction doesn’t seem to bother the 150 journalists working around the clock to produce simultaneous newscasts in English, French, and Arabic.

It’s a mix that, by leaving out Hebrew, immediately signals i24’s ambition to speak to viewers beyond Israel’s borders. While English and French were obvious choices, the network’s founders say the decision to broadcast in Arabic was taken consciously to build an audience in parts of the world most hostile to Israel. “People will watch us because they hate us, and they will watch us through curiosity,” said Frank Melloul, the network’s Swiss-born 39-year-old CEO, who says he believes he can eventually compete with CNN, the BBC, and Al Jazeera for viewers. “They will see how we cover the 70 percent of international news, and if they can trust that, then they will also trust how we cover Israeli news.”

The goal, Melloul says, is not so much to promote Israel’s interests, but to shift the media narrative by adding to the mix of stories available on television. “I want to change the story a bit,” Melloul said. Last week, when 26 prisoners were sent back to the West Bank and Gaza in the first stage of that release, the i24 website carried a detailed list of their exact names and crimes, as well as the names of their victims, many of whom were murdered civilians. “When we are talking about an incursion in Gaza, all channels start broadcasting when the IDF is going into Gaza,” Melloul said. “Nobody starts broadcasting when Israel is under attack and getting rockets. There is always a fact before an invasion in Gaza.”

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