Palestine Portrayed
The 1948 War and the problems it left unresolved have returned to the top of the agenda for both diplomats and historians.
Prague Summer: The Altneuschul, Pan Am, and Herbert Marcuse
A mysterious memoir of planes, Marx, and minyans.
Proverbs 8:22-31
Many have marveled at the wisdom of the biblical books attributed to King Solomon. Here, in a new translation by Robert Alter, is Proverbs' account of the birth of Wisdom herself, from The Wisdom Books: Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes: A Translation with Commentary, now out with Norton.
Temporary Measures: Sukkah City
The reimagining of an ancient architectural ritual.
The Bible Scholar Who Didn’t Know Hebrew
The surprising story of Elias Bickerman and his scholarship.
The Chabad Paradox
Despite its tiny numbers, the Hasidic group known as Chabad or Lubavitch has transformed the Jewish world. Not only the most successful contemporary Hasidic sect, it might be the most successful Jewish religious movement of the second half of the twentieth century. But two new books raise provocative questions about it.
The One and the Many
A popular new book deals with differences between the world's religions, but misses the mark in several of them.
Trilling, Babel, and the Rabbis
Part of Trilling's mystique came from the way he seemed "to be a Jew and yet not Jewish."
When Eve Ate the Etrog: A Passage from Tsena-Urena
There was once a custom for a pregnant woman to bite off the tip of the etrog at the end of Sukkot. This excerpt includes the text of a Yiddish prayer, or tkhine, that the pregnant woman is instructed to recite based on an interpretation of Genesis 3:6.
All the Good Things of Spain
The greatest Hebrew poet gets the English bio he deserves.