Letters, Winter 2024
Reconstructing the Bible I’d like to take issue with Ethan Schwartz’s recent essay “You Say You Want a Revelation” reviewing Edward Feld’s The Book of Revolutions. Feld did not wing it or merely “read between the lines,” as Schwartz states. Feld cleanly lays out evidence that for those who wrote the Torah, “the decision to be inclusive, to incorporate vying…
Lovers (and Haters) of Zion
A new history of Zionism tells the tale through the towering emotions of its proponents and adversaries.
Of “Good Jews” and Bad Binaries
Anti-Israeli bigots do not hate Israel because they believe the worst about its actions. They feel an urge to believe the worst about Israeli actions because they hate Israel.
Oh Homeland, Don’t You Wonder (Tzion Ha-lo Tishali)
Dan Alter translates Judah Halevi's poem of yearning for Zion from nearly a thousand years ago.
Origin Stories
If the Israelites of the Hebrew Bible weren't Jewish, when did Judaism begin?
Pogrom: A Poem
Will the hunters come again to our abode tonight, seeking our souls with gun threats? Will they come quiet and furtive, until the crack of a shot cuts through the crickets? Perhaps they will arrive with a shofar blast like the lords of the land subduing the world, bringing their sons to teach them the wiles of war, carrying our…
Readjusting Sights
Reams of military history, and recollections by generals have been written on Israel’s many wars, but in this bookish country, Haim Sabato is one of the few Israeli soldiers to write a truly literary memoir.
Reprise of the Repressed
So much of American Jewish pop-culture sets out to shame the audience, one wonders why there's such an appetite for it.
Stuck in the Middle
Would American Jews be safer if they removed themselves from politics?
Tamar, Helen, and Love’s Ambition
What can Shakespeare’s most unlikely love story tell us about Tamar’s "bed trick" and the fate of the Jewish people?