Don’t Be Distracted by Hamas’s Claims to Moderation
The terrorist group turns 35.
December 23, 2022
The Great 16th-Century Rabbi Who Combined Legalism with Mysticism
Joseph Karo and the Judeo-Islamic tradition.
Born in Spain in 1488, and expelled with the rest of the country’s Jews as a child, Joseph Karo spent the next four decades of his life in the Balkans where he engaged in rabbinic study before settling in Safed in the Land of Israel. Along with other scholars, Karo would transform this Galilean town into a major center of Jewish learning. There he would complete his seminal works, most importantly the Shulḥan Arukh (“Set Table”), which remains the most authoritative code of Jewish law. Besides his extensive halakhic scholarship, Karo was also immersed in the study of Kabbalah, and kept a diary of his mystical experiences, which included frequent intercourse with an angelic being known as a magid. Roni Weinstein describes this unusual text:
December 23, 2022
How Congress Bullied the FBI into Its Shameful Investigation of Israel
“Cynical and nakedly political.”
The Great 16th-Century Rabbi Who Combined Legalism with Mysticism
Joseph Karo and the Judeo-Islamic tradition.
A Newly Elected New York Congressman May Have Fabricated His Jewish Roots
George Santos’s dubious past.
Hanukkah’s Forgotten Heroine
Judith was beloved by medieval Jews.