Karl Marx, Bourgeois Revolutionary
Jonathan Sperber's new biography paints Karl Marx as a surprisingly conventional 19th-century paterfamilias.
Letters, Fall 2013
Superpowered Thinking, Kant’s Dignity, Proust’s Jewish Melodies, & More
Meanwhile, on a Quiet Street in Cleveland
Two Jewish kids from Cleveland created Superman. Why does the Man of Steel still fascinate us?
Notice Posted on the Door of the Kelm Talmud Torah Before the High Holidays
In the 1860s, Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv tried to found a new kind of yeshiva in which students would devote significant time to thinking about their moral lives.
On Not Bringing Up Baby
What happens when the rising cost of raising children meets the downward pressure on reproduction?
The Day School Tuition Crisis: A Short History
In 1935, Israel Chipkin wrote that day schools were “financially prohibitive” for most Jews. The more things change . . .
The Hunter
James Salter has been justly celebrated as a composer of gorgeous prose, and his new late-life novel All That Is confirms his reputation as a writer's writer. How much of his artistic vision is predicated on being James Salter rather than James Horowitz?
The Joy of Being Delivered from Jewish Schools Results in a Stiff Foot
Before he became a brilliant, radical, and disreputable Enlightenment philosopher, Solomon Maimon was a miserable cheder student.
Who Owns Margot?
What if Anne Frank’s sister had survived Bergen-Belsen? Interesting, but . . .
“Why Bother?” A Rejoinder
Is Renewal a path toward the future or a road away from Judaism?