David Kraemer
By David Kraemer
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Opinion Why Judaism Requires Pursuing The Goals Of The Paris Accords
(JTA) The Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement has demanded that we all ask ourselves where we stand on questions of climate change, global warming and our collective responsibility for the planet we call home. That the earth has been warming in recent years is indisputable. At issue are the causes…
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News Leavened or Unleavened: A History
Everyone knows that food is a serious part of the Passover Seder. But very few people take Seder food seriously. Though everyone who attends a Seder is aware that certain foods are central to the Seder ritual, and most — at least by the end of the Seder — will be aware of the conventional…
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News Not a ‘Happy New Year’
In the experience of most Jews, at least in the United States, Rosh Hashanah is an occasion of relative joy. It is a time when they put on their best and even new garb, families gather for abundant, festive meals and fellow congregants greet one another with a hearty “Happy New Year!” either in English,…
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Culture Strategic Difference
Halacha (Jewish law and practice) doesn’t ordinarily care about its own interpretations. So long as the Jew does what he or she is supposed to do, the system doesn’t care why he does it or how she understands what she does. For this reason, the great codes of Jewish law describe what is required of…
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Culture The Logic of Impurity
The ritual of the Red Heifer is one of the most mysterious rituals in the entire Torah. (I have no doubt that this first sentence has been written many times before, but the ritual is so mysterious — so contrary to “logic” — that it is virtually impossible to write about it without commenting on…
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Culture Why saying ‘L’shana Tova’ on Rosh Hashanah may not be the correct phrase
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Culture A Jewish prophet of the 1980s would be horrified to see that we didn’t heed his warnings
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Opinion With killing of Hezbollah’s chief, Israel occupies the inarguable moral high ground
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Opinion This is the most disorienting Rosh Hashanah in memory
In Case You Missed It
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Film & TV How Leonard Cohen — and a Yom Kippur prayer — inspired a coming-of-age epic
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Opinion A year after Oct. 7, Israel has the chance to remake its future — for better or worse
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Opinion Campus protests defined the year since Oct. 7. Could they actually change U.S. policy?
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Special Report At the kibbutz hit hardest on Oct. 7, a wrenching debate over how to rebuild
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