Commentary

Basmat Hazan and Ruby Namdar on why cities need fruit.

Architecture

Ghiora Aharoni prescribes what a contemporary scholar needs in a city.

PERSONAL ESSAY

Elissa Strauss says enlightenment happens in cities, not on mountaintops.

#5: THE TALMUD ON WHAT MAKES A CITY

It has been taught: A scholar should not reside in a city where the following ten things are not found: A court of justice that imposes flagellation and decrees penalties; a charity fund collected by two and distributed by three; a synagogue; public baths; a convenience; a circumciser; a surgeon, a notary; a slaughterer and a school-master.  R. Akiba is quoted [as including] also several kinds of fruit [in the list], because these are beneficial to the eyesight.

 – Babylonian Talmud: Tractate Sanhedrin Folio 17b

Why do we live in the places we live? What do we need from them? How can they help us grow as individuals and communities? And how might they hold us back?

These are the questions that Roman-era Talmudic scholars contemplated, and these are the questions that we increasingly contemplate as the most mobile and urban humans to have ever inhabited our planet.

In this month's journal we consider what we want from cities, and how they work. And, like the sages, we didn't forget the fruit.

Elissa Strauss
Editor