You May View the Land from a Distance: Chaim Weizmann, May 1948
On the day the State of Israel declared independence, Chaim Weizmann lay ill and exhausted in a New York hotel room, waiting to hear if his rivals in Tel Aviv would recognize his achievements.
Second-Hand Jew: A Self-Portrait in Scenes
I took my first novel to Israel with me, and when a suitcase bomb exploded twenty meters away from me at the Munich airport, I shielded the manuscript with my body. My sister didn’t read it until just before I left. Then she said: “I thought Thomas Mann was dead. Anyway, if you ask me, he’s not a good example.”
This Great House
Israel's new National Library building is an excellent place to study, peruse rare tomes, and hock over decent coffee.
Light and Darkness
In her new book, Marilynne Robinson lays out a vision of God that makes surprising sense, yet is anything but simple.
Letters, Spring 2024
JRB Don't You Wonder? Anti-Israelism or Antisemitism? Good News from Sa'ad, and More
Imperial Rabbis
How did talmudic-era Jews relate to the culture around them? A new book by Simcha Gross suggests a radically new understanding.
What’s Love Got to Do with It?
Shai Held's new book is an elaborate treatise, blending polemic and apologetics with theological insight and moral exhortation.
Like a Pharaoh
When Thaïs Miller attended a Yiddish class in Poland, she discovered that she was the only Jew many of her classmates had ever met.
Shylock at the Barricades
A new production of The Merchant of Venice is revolutionary, but maybe not for the right reasons.
Her Own Creation and Pure Luck
The fraught project of becoming an American pulses through Daughter of History, intertwined with the similarly fraught project of becoming an adult.