Revealer Revealed
Earlier this year, an email announcement of a publication made its rounds among scholars of Jewish studies. Written in the flowery Hebrew of the Eastern European Jewish Enlightenment, the advertisement proclaimed that the work would “reveal all secrets.”
Shifting Sands
Shlomo Sand believes that nations are, in the nature of the case, modern inventions, and that Israel is a particularly bad one.
Silence of the Lambs
Sacrifice is both foreign and familiar. Actually sacrificing an animal is difficult to imagine, and yet we continue to speak freely of sacrifice in connection with political and moral obligations.
The Argumentative Jew
The most common understanding of disagreement, in the private sphere and the public one, is that it represents a failure.
Thoroughly Modern Maimonides?: A Rejoinder
To sharpen Stern’s point, we may say that the person who believes God literally gets angry metaphorically angers God.
Thoroughly Modern Maimonides?: A Response
Kaplan writes that “one key statement . . . I would have liked to see Stern contend” with is “‘For only truth pleases God and only falsehood angers Him,’ [Guide 2:47] which implies that only truth, not the search for truth, is of value.”
Why the Germans?
Was Nazi hatred of the Jews driven by envy of their economic and social success or rather by a fear of a perceived threat to German culture and identity?
Yiddish Genius in America
The great Yiddish poet Jacob Glatstein wrote two autobiographical novels and envisioned a third, set in America. Why didn’t he write it?
Warped Fantasies
Jews observing the resurgence of anti-Semitism in the 21st century may be forgiven for thinking that they inhabit “a warped fantasy.”
Eichmann, Arendt, and “The Banality of Evil”
Richard Wolin’s review of a new book about Adolf Eichmann caused a stir, mainly about Arendt. His exchange with Seyla Benhabib on the banality (or not) of evil.