
Our Winter Issue
The Winter 2021 issue’s evocative watercolor cover from artist Mark Anderson was inspired by Hillel Halkin’s utterly extraordinary ruminative essay on a brilliant but unsung memoir of an American Jewish life. In the course of the essay, Halkin also reflects on his own life from a Bronx childhood to traveling an hour to hear Martin Luther King Jr. preach in a Southern church and eventually to aliyah. It’s long and deep and repays close reading. We suggest savoring it in print.
With articles by
- Robert Alter
- Allan Arkush
- Cole S. Aronson
- David Biale
- Matti Friedman
- Robert P. George
- Dara Horn
- Andrew Koss
- Michal Leibowitz
- Allan Nadler
- Eddy Portnoy
- Sarah Rindner
- Jesse Tisch
- Steven J. Zipperstein
plus Alice Nakhimovsky and Roberta Newman’s recovery of fascinating turn-of-the-20th century Yiddish letter-writing manuals and an exchange between Allan Arkush and Alexander Kaye on the extent to which medieval Judaism gave rise to the idea of a halakhic state

Write a Modern Letter, Live a Modern Life
Imagine that you’re a woman living in a shtetl in 1900: what do you say in a letter to your husband in America if you think he’s cheating on you?

Zero-Sum Game
Most liberal Israelis once believed the 1990s-era Western narrative about Israeli-Palestinian peace: that the Palestinians would eventually be satisfied with a state alongside Israel, that everyone desired the same kind of progress, that maximalist rhetoric on the Arab side masked more modest goals, and that the Palestinian talk about millions of refugees and their “right of return” to Israel was a starting position that was bound to be bargained away.
The Last Word
Acknowledging that it may seem unusual for a non-Jew to lead the chorus of praises for this Jewish poet-artist, Count Polzer-Hoditz insists that “it is a matter of honor for non-Jewish Austrians to acknowledge him as a major contributor to world literature” and that “Jews will honor themselves when they celebrate Uriel Birnbaum.”

A Conversation
Register to hear Jewish Review of Books editor Abe Socher in conversation with literary critic and poet Adam Kirsch. Adam’s new book, The Blessing and the Curse: The Jewish People…
The Last Word
Acknowledging that it may seem unusual for a non-Jew to lead the chorus of praises for this Jewish poet-artist, Count Polzer-Hoditz insists that “it is a matter of honor for non-Jewish Austrians to acknowledge him as a major contributor to world literature” and that “Jews will honor themselves when they celebrate Uriel Birnbaum.”
Past Issues

Issue No. 44
Winter 2021

Issue No. 43
Fall 2020

Issue No. 42
Summer 2020

Issue No. 41