The Spirit is Unwilling  Mary Pilon,  New York Times.  Why won't the president of the International Olympic Committee allow for a moment of silence, in "the Olympic spirit," on the tragic anniversary of the 1972 murder of 11 Israeli athletes and coaches?  SAVE

A Heretic in the Truth  Zachary Micah Gartenberg,  Jewish Review of Books.  Spinoza takes Maimonides' characterization of miracles as divinely implanted—but still natural—anomalies in the regular course of things. Then Spinoza adds a twist.  SAVE

E-vil?  Micah Stein,  Tablet.  The ultra-Orthodox rally against the Internet is not merely about pornography. It's about Facebook, filters, accountability, and the maintenance of rabbinic authority. And then it is also about pornography.  SAVE

Masonic Rites in the Holy Land  Nadav Shragai,  Israel Hayom.  Below Jerusalem's Old City, a Freemason "laid my pocket Bible atop the stone in the middle of the cave and three candles around it which shower light . . ."  SAVE

Hezbollah's Newest Threat  Lee Smith,  Tablet.  The culture of resistance crafted by Hezbollah is on the wane, as many Shiites aren't eager to serve as human shields in the next round of warfare.  SAVE

Haredinomics  Uri Weiss,  Haaretz.  By bringing in donations, Israel's ultra-Orthodox—whether they know it or not—are boosting the country's GDP.  SAVE

Doctor Who?  Roni Caryn Rabin,  New York Times.  Despite a sequence of papal edicts prohibiting Jewish doctors from treating Christians, almost every pope in history had a personal physician who was Jewish.  SAVE

The Nakba that Almost Was  Robert Werdine,  Times of Israel.  What would have happened to the Jewish towns of nascent Israel were the invading Arab armies successful?  SAVE

Dragoman  Eric Ormsby,  Wall Street Journal.  Though Bernard Lewis is firmly opposed to historical relativists, he is keenly aware of the sheer slipperiness of historical terrain.  SAVE

Wadiya Doin’?  J. Hoberman,  Tablet.  Chaplin's Great Dictator ends with an anti-fascist speech; Sacha Baron Cohen's Dictator breaks the proscenium to make a blunt political statement—about the inequities of American society.  SAVE

The Refugee Question  Ruth Lapidoth,  Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.  The plight of the Palestinian refugees raises at least three legal questions: Who is considered a refugee? Do these refugees have a right to return to Israel? Do they have a right to compensation? (2002)  SAVE

Nakba and Narrative  Matti Friedman,  Times of Israel.  The simple narrative of the 1948 displacement of Palestinian Arabs erases the uncomfortable truth that half of Israel's Jews are there not because of the Nazis but because of the Arabs themselves.  SAVE

Not Fit to Print  Nick Pinto,  Village Voice.  What's missing from the New York Times' front-page stories on sex abuse in Brooklyn's ultra-Orthodox communities? Acknowledgement of the reportage lifted from Jewish media outlets.  SAVE

Israel's Gay Pride  Giulio Meotti,  Ynet.  The story of gay Palestinians sheltered by Israel—some 300 in the last 20 years—goes unreported in the Western media, which is happy to hold Arabs to a lower standard.  SAVE

Body Language  Arika Okrent,  Lapham's Quarterly.  Jews tended to use one hand, Italians both. Italians touched their own bodies, Jews touched the bodies of their conversational partners. But as Jews and Italians became American, so did their gestures.  SAVE

Campaign for Relegitimization  Joel Fishman,  Israel Council on Foreign Relations.  It is no longer enough for Israel to proclaim that it seeks peace. Although it is unfashionable to speak in such terms, we are also engaged in a religious war. (PDF)  SAVE

“Thou whoreson, obscene, greasy tallow-catch . . .”  Amit Gevaryahu,  Talmud Blog.  What distinction does a 13th-century talmudic responsum draw between calling someone a "mamzer" and calling someone a "whore's son"?  SAVE

Megalopolis  Avital Lahav,  Ynet.  Is the solution to Israel's housing crisis the creation of a mega-city encompassing much of central Israel?  SAVE

Sally Priesand and the Reality Principle  Michele Alperin,  JNS.  Forty years ago, the first woman rabbi intended to get married and have children, and planned to have a nursery next to her synagogue office. Reality turned out to be different.  SAVE

Israel's Future Air Force  Amir Mizroch,  Wired.  Nano drones that an infantryman can pull out of his pocket, robots that can extract wounded soldiers from the battlefield, algorithms that resolve pilots' ethical dilemmas . . .  SAVE

Black Hats and Cassocks  Avi Shafran,  Jewish Week.  Prudent, measured insularity is not asceticism, and Haredim aren't monks.  SAVE

Common Denominator  Bryan Schwartzman,  Jewish Exponent.  Across denominational lines, rabbis are facing the same problems—and are actually working together to solve them.  SAVE

A Serious Man  Joseph Epstein,  New Criterion.  One day Hilton Kramer appeared to drop off his copy in person at the New Leader offices. The editor asked him if he knew anyone who was looking for a job. "Actually, I do," he said. "Me."  SAVE