Memory and Terror
How does a survivor of an infamous hijacking piece together her history?
Intrigues and Tzuris
Have you seen the one about the Hasidic jewelers and the Albanian goons?
My Path in Jewish Studies: Memoirs of a Counter-Historian
When David Biale told Gershom Scholem that he wanted to work on the history of Jewish sexuality, the great sage of Jerusalem responded, "That's not a field!"
The Integralists and Us
A Jewish colleague once asked Harvard Law Professor Adrian Vermeule, “In a fully Catholic polity, the sort you would like to bring about, what would happen to me, a Jew”? “Nothing bad,” Vermeule replied. OK, let’s see.
Dateline Zion
"Jewish law does not go forth from London, and so rabbinic authorities have long attempted to define a Jewish date line."
“I am an Object Loved by God”: Rereading Clarice Lispector
The great Brazilian novelist Clarice Lispector rarely acknowledged her own Jewishness but when the Jornal do Brasil fired her a few days after the Yom Kippur War broke out, something changed.
Akedat Hannah
Hannah's vow binds Samuel to an altar just as Abraham bound Isaac, but her sacrifice has a different origin and her story a different ending.
Indiana Jones and the Meme-ification of Nazis
What happens when pop culture becomes responsible for maintaining historical memory? Benjamin Weiner has a bad feeling about it.
Another Round with Norman Mailer
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.
As American as Augie March
Once again, Maya Arad marries the metafictional play of Nabokov with the moral warmth of Jane Austen.