As we prepare to enter the month of Elul, we revisit a classic Elul essay in the TRADITION archives. In 1994 our editor, Rabbi Emanuel Feldman, penned an “Editor’s Notebook” titled “The Shofar That Is Sounded in Elul." It was an opportunity to explore divisions in Israeli society and—even three decades on—remains relevant even as he could not have known how the country would be paradoxically more united and more divided in unexpected ways.

Menachem Kellner’s recent review of books on Rambam’s philosophical works first emerging from within the right-wing and Haredi publishing houses raised a variety of issues concerning examining those works from outside the academic interpretations to which they have been subject. Yaakov Blau offers a “dispassionate critique” of Kellner and defends the methods and accomplishments of ArtScroll. 

In the modern State of Israel the complex relationship between religion and media is a two-way street. How well does the Hebrew press do its job when it covers Judaism? And how does the media influence religious leaders? In reviewing Yoel Cohen’s “Rabbis, Reporters and the Public in the Digital Holyland” Ari Goldman reminds us there’s another element to this relationship in the 21st century, namely the role of the public who, through social media, are very much partners in this relationship, which has gone from two-directional to triangular.