Month: August 2026

Ki Tetse (כי תצא — “when you go out”)
Devarim / Deuteronomy 21:10–25:19 • Yeshayahu / Isaiah 54:1–10

Moshe sets out laws governing communal life: the conduct of war, respect for others, protection of the vulnerable, and justice and honesty in human relationships. The haftara is a message of consolation addressed to Zion: after rupture come return, rebuilding, and renewal.

Deuteronomy 23:10
כִּי־תֵצֵא מַחֲנֶה עַל־אֹיְבֶיךָ וְנִשְׁמַרְתָּ מִכֹּל דָּבָר רָע
“When you go out as a camp against your enemies, guard yourself from every evil thing.”

The idea of founding a new talmudic academy in Yavneh ^[1] dates back to 1913, when Rav Avraham Yitzḥak HaCohen Kook proposed purchasing the historical lands ^[2] of Yavneh to establish an agricultural settlement and a yeshiva. The project was carried by the Mizraḥi movement, but construction of the building was only completed in the late 1940s. Yeshivat Kerem BeYavneh^[3] finally opened in 1953 under the leadership of Rav Ḥayim Yaakov Goldvicht ^[4].

In its early years, the institution functioned as a classic yeshiva, without any particular military framework ^[5]. It was only in 1965 that the Hesder program ^[6] (הֶסְדֵּר — arrangement) was established, combining intensive Torah study with military service.

A military camp is not a space where rules cease to apply. In Israeli military ethics, this requirement is expressed in the notion of Tohar HaNesheq ^[7] (טֹהַר־הַנֶּשֶׁק — purity of arms), which states that the use of force must remain subject to moral limits.

The Kerem BeYavneh campus is a collection of study and residential buildings surrounded by a wide green area. The Beit Midrash forms its core. Construction of the main building, designed by architect Meir Ben‑Uri ^[8], began in 1946. The buildings are set within a landscape of gardens, trees, and agricultural land.

^[1] Yavneh — According to talmudic tradition, Rabban Yoḥanan ben Zakkai established a center of study there after the destruction of the Second Temple.
^[2] Purchase of the Yavneh lands — The lands were acquired in 1940 through the joint initiative of Rav Meir Berlin (Bar‑Ilan), president of the Mizraḥi movement, and Menaḥem Ussishkin, head of the Jewish National Fund.
^[3] Kerem BeYavneh — The name “Kerem BeYavneh” predates the modern yeshiva: it already appears in the Mishnah (Eduyot 2:4; Ketubbot 4:6). The Jerusalem Talmud (Ketubbot 4:1) explains that it was not a vineyard in the literal sense, but sages seated in rows “like a vineyard.”
^[4] Rav Ḥayim Yaakov Goldvicht — Born in 1925, trained at Yeshivat Etz Ḥayim in Jerusalem, close to the Ḥazon Ish and the Brisker Rav, he led Kerem BeYavneh for nearly forty years. In 1991, he received the Israel Prize on behalf of the Hesder yeshivot movement.
^[5] Gahalat nucleus — The yeshiva was founded by a group from the Gahalat nucleus (גח״לת, Garin Ḥalutzi Loḥem Torani), composed of highly committed religious youth with strong discipline, including alumni of the Bnei Akiva yeshiva of Kfar HaRo’e. Rav Goldvicht became the first Rosh Yeshiva after consulting the Ḥazon Ish.
^[6] Hesder program — Hesder combines intensive Torah study with military service. The Nahal Torani framework was formalized in 1965, two years before the Six-Day War — Kerem BeYavneh thus becoming the first yeshiva of this type, later nicknamed “the mother of the Hesder yeshivot.”
^[7] Tohar HaNesheq — A central concept of Israeli military ethics, later integrated into the formal ethical code of the IDF, Ru’aḥ Tzahal (רוח צה״ל — “spirit of the IDF”). Maimonides links the requirement of sanctity in the military camp (Deuteronomy 23:15) to moral limits in the conduct of war (Guide of the Perplexed III:41). Issues of distinction between combatants and civilians, proportionality, and limits of violence are debated in military, legal, and halakhic contexts.
^[8] Meir Ben‑Uri — An Israeli architect trained during the British Mandate period, part of the generation that shaped the educational and religious institutions of the Yishuv. His work is characterized by functional, sober architecture attentive to communal needs and integration into the rural landscape. He contributed to several public and institutional projects in the 1940s–1960s.

Shoftim (שֹׁפְטִים — Judges)
Deuteronomy 16:18–21:9 • Isaiah 51:12–52:12

Moses commands Israel to appoint judges and officers; the haftarah proclaims that God is the ultimate judge and comforter, promising Zion that she will not be forgotten.

Shoftim 16:18
וְשֹׁפְטִים וְשֹׁטְרִים תִּתֶּן־לְךָ בְּכָל־שְׁעָרֶיךָ
“You shall appoint judges and magistrates for yourself in all your gates.”^[1]

On the sidewalks of Berlin, more than 11,000 stones^[2] commemorate individuals persecuted under Nazism. Created by the German artist Gunter Demnig^[3], the Stolpersteine^[4] are placed in front of the last residence these people were able to choose before persecution tore them away.

Under the Nazi regime, persecuted individuals were gradually stripped of their rights, their property, their freedom, and—tragically for many—their lives. Reduced to categories and numbers, their memory was erased from public space. Gunter Demnig’s project seeks symbolically to reverse this process by reintroducing names into the streets and places of daily life. Each stone bears the person’s name, date of birth, and—when available—brief information about their fate. The name thus returns to the very space where that person once lived.

The passerby must stop and bend down to read the name engraved on the stone— the name of someone whom the Nazi regime sought to erase.

^[1] Before each installation, the Koordinierungsstelle Stolpersteine Berlin verifies that the chosen address truly corresponds to a residence selected by the person before dispossession or forced assignment, and not to a location imposed by persecution measures. This case‑by‑case verification determines whether a stone may be placed.
^[2] Stolperstein: A 10 × 10 cm concrete block topped with a hand‑engraved 10 × 10 cm brass plate. Today, more than 126,000 Stolpersteine have been installed in Germany and in 31 other European countries, making it the largest decentralized memorial in the world. In Berlin, more than 11,000 are visible throughout the city.
^[3] Gunter Demnig, a German artist born in Berlin in 1947, is the initiator of the Stolpersteine. In May 1990, he painted the deportation route of 1,000 Sinti and Roma from Cologne to the Deutz railway station (May 1940), a first gesture foreshadowing the project. On 16 December 1992, marking the fiftieth anniversary of Himmler’s decree ordering their deportation, he laid a first isolated stone in front of Cologne’s city hall. Serial installation began in January 1995 in Cologne and continued in Berlin from 1996 onward. Demnig emphasizes the uniqueness of each person: one stone, one name, one story. He links this approach to a Talmudic idea: “A person is forgotten only when their name is no longer remembered.”
^[4] The name Stolpersteine means “stones one stumbles upon.” Demnig speaks of a “mental stumbling”: the passerby stops, reads, and remembers. He also cites a student’s remark: “You do not trip over the Stolpersteine; you trip with your head and your heart.”

Re’eh (רְאֵה — See)
Deuteronomy 11:26–16:17 • Isaiah 54:11–55:5

Moses invites Israel to choose between blessing and curse by remaining faithful to the covenant. The haftarah responds with a promise of consolation: Zion, tested yet never abandoned, receives the announcement of a reconstruction even more solid than its past.

Isaiah 54:11
עֲנִיָּה סֹעֲרָה לֹא נֻחָמָה הִנֵּה אָנֹכִי מַרְבִּיץ בַּפּוּךְ אֲבָנַיִךְ וִיסַדְתִּיךְ בַּסַפִּירִים
“O afflicted one, storm‑tossed and unconsoled, behold, I will lay your stones with antimony and set your foundations with sapphires.”

Above the northern Arsenale in Venice, storm‑tossed ^[1], a synagogue floats. Presented at the Venice Biennale ^[2] by the artist Anna Kamyshan ^[3], in collaboration with the Museum of Jewish Montreal, the work, titled Nabatele ^[4], is part of the Yiddishland Pavilion ^[5], a project conceived as a space for memory and transmission of Yiddish culture.

It is a double‑membrane helium balloon that evokes the old wooden synagogues of the Eastern European shtetls, most of which were destroyed in the twentieth century. It can rise up to twenty‑five metres above the lagoon. The whole structure rests on a suspended rock, without any terrestrial anchoring. The illuminated windows evoke the ner tamid ^[6].

In the Venetian ghetto, synagogues were concealed behind the façades of residential buildings. Here, by contrast, the floating structure—between sky and sea, in precarious balance—is visible from everywhere.

Kamyshan’s gesture situates the work within a contemporary reflection on exile, reconstruction, and transmission. The installation thus materializes a cultural belonging that depends on no territory ^[7].

^[1] Installed on the evening of 16 July, the installation was closed for maintenance following the severe storms of 17 July; the official site then announced a reopening within about ten days.
^[2] The 61st International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale runs from 16 July to 16 September 2026.
^[3] Anna Kamyshan is a Ukrainian artist and architect based in London, who identifies as having Jewish heritage.
^[4] A word formed from nabat, a Ukrainian and Russian term (наба́т) meaning “alarm, tocsin, alert call,” to which the artist added the Yiddish diminutive ‑ele.
^[5] The Yiddishland Pavilion is an independent project founded in 2022 by Maria Veits, a curator and researcher based in London, and Yevgeniy Fiks, an artist born in Moscow and based in New York. Their work focuses on the history of Yiddish culture and Jewish political thought.
^[6] The perpetual light present in synagogues in memory of the Sanctuary’s lampstand (Exodus 27:20–21). Anna Kamyshan adopts this symbol of permanence to evoke the transmission of the inner light of Jewish culture.
^[7] The curators, Maria Veits and Yevgeniy Fiks, describe Nabatele as embodying Yiddishland: the work gives concrete presence to a belonging that depends on no territory.