What Is a Jew? The Answer of the Maccabees
In 1958, David Ben-Gurion sent a letter to fifty Jewish leaders around the world, asking, "Who is a Jew?" Many replied, but Abba Hillel Silver did not—not directly, anyhow.
Yo’s Blues
For Israeli artist Yoram Kaniuk, the bohemian world of Billie Holiday, Marlon Brando, and James Agee had a lot to offer, but not enough.
Brother Daniel, Sister Ulitskaya
Ludmila Ulitskaya's fictionalized version of the Brother Daniel case asks us all to turn the other cheek.
Hope, Beauty, and Bus Lanes in Tel Aviv
From the floor of Tel Aviv's City Council, Israel's future looks more promising than many would think.
Irving Kristol, Edmund Burke, and the Rabbis
Irving Kristol started off as a neo-Trotskyite and famously became the “godfather of neoconservatism.” But his idiosyncratic “neo-Orthodoxy” lasted a lifetime.
Jacob Glatstein’s Prophecy
Literary masterpieces that double as works of prophecy have been rare since the death of Isaiah. But the Yiddish poet Jacob Glatstein wrote two novellas that foreshadowed the future of Jewish Europe.
Letters, Summer 2011
Springtime for Arabia, Hailing to the Chief, Straw Men . . . and more!
Loaves in the Ark
A striking tale of pure faith, divine fiat, and free food from Rabbi Moses Hagiz's
Missed Connections
Joseph Skibell, like any good historical novelist, is a dybbuk—he animates the dead.
Railroads and Dragon’s Teeth
During World War I, the Kaiser Germany sought to foment an Ottoman jihad by building a massive railroad—but he wasn't the only one with the scheme.