Posts
Protesting Too Much
Out of place with the anti-Zionists.
Letters, Spring 2026
Canonizing the Rav; I'm Walkin' Here!
Rediscovering Rebecca Gratz
Rebecca Gratz was more than a great Jewish philanthropist with a legendary backstory. She was also a worried older sister, as newly discovered letters reveal.
Updike and the Jews
John Updike's stories about Henry Bech were a chutzpadik, shape-shifting experiment in Jewish mimicry. But what did they reveal about their creator?
My Father’s Seders
Verses flowed through his mind as easily as a boat on a waveless river. Why fight with an antisemite when you could rhyme him into shame?
Zim Zum
A new biography of Barnett Newman could have used some contraction.
Yavne and its Sage: Menahem Kahana (1946–2025)
When he skipped a Shabbat lecture, Kahana shrugged. “If everyone came to the shiur, who would learn Torah?”
Breaching the Walls of History
Why was it so important to a prominent haredi rabbi to tie himself up in speculative knots just to deny a library checkout list?
Kaplan Unbound
Reconstructing Mordecai Kaplan's holy wars.
Vocabulary Lesson
How bad is antisemitism? According to the protestations of a new book, maybe not too bad at all.