Summer 2023

Letters, Summer 2023

Outside, but Where?; Satmar Literacy; On the Interpretation of Freud, and More

Nobody’s Fool

Julian Levinson

After Saul Bellow translated "Gimpel the Fool," he, Irving Howe, and Lazer Greenberg had a lechaim over schnapps. But nobody talked with Isaac Bashevis Singer.

At the Edge of What?

David Engel

Was the golden age of Polish Jewry truly golden, or just the calm before the storm?

Early Modern Blasphemy and Postmodern Virtue

Benjamin Weiner

Was Jacob Frank a progressive trendsetter or a seductive cult leader?

Solidarity and Democracy

Allan Arkush

Ben-Gurion saw little need for American-style checks and balances. Instead, he put his democratic faith in mamlakhtiyut.

Come Here to Me, You Fortunate Citizen of the World

Dara Horn

Zalmen Gradowski’s testimony makes the sadism of the Nazi enterprise painfully clear. That seems obvious, but it runs counter to most Holocaust education.

No Simple Return

Samantha Rose Hill

“I stepped into the air.” Hilde Domin wrote, “and it carried me.”

Problems with Authority

Nadia Kalman

Paul Goldberg’s latest novel, The Dissident, is a narrative tour de force that plays far too fast and loose with the historical facts, leaving its readers deeply misled.

As American as Augie March

Michael Weingrad

Once again, Maya Arad marries the metafictional play of Nabokov with the moral warmth of Jane Austen.

It’s the End of the World as We Know It

David J. Wolpe

Can liberal Judaism survive and thrive in the digital age?

Those Days Are Gone Forever

Yeshua G. B. Tolle

What, exactly, is camp spirit?

Another Round with Norman Mailer

Jesse Tisch

Norman Mailer had the gift of enlivening everything he touched. And he touched almost everything, from politics to Hollywood to Sports. But his Jewish novel stayed in the drawer.

From Place to Place in Search of a Place: Reading Agnon in Berlin

Shai Secunda

Far from his family, and searching for a sukkah, Shai Secunda found himself following Shai Agnon’s footsteps through the city of Berlin.

From Turban to Top Hat

Jenna Weissman Joselit

Torah crowns, Chinese scrolls, portraits by John Singer Sargent, invaluable Hebrew manuscripts. What does the Sassoon treasure mean?

Strange, I’ve Seen that Face Before

José Martínez Delgado

Just as I was about to close the window and move on to the next Geniza fragment, two words winked at me as if I were a friend.