Posts
Kibbutz Be’eri, Chaos, and Creation
"Be’eri was not so much assaulted as disemboweled. After the massacre there were corpses everywhere—what is left now is the stuff of lives ripped out."
Pogroms, Politics, and the Association for Jewish Studies
"Only the word horrific seemed apt; the rest of the statement managed the rare feat of being both drab and discordant."
Not Rain
"In shul, the Torah reader suddenly picks up his ringing cellphone, nodding as he is told to be ready within half an hour. Something inexplicable, tremendous, and terrifying is taking place. Not rain; war."
Letters, Fall 2023
A Question of Authority It’s inaccurate and fundamentally unfair to take the words of a character in a novel and attribute them to the author. Sadly, this is what Nadia Kalman elects to do in her review of my novel, The Dissident (“Problems with Authority,” Summer 2023). Writes Kalman: This novel seems to be saying something like this: antisemitic persecutions…
After the Fall
Who would have believed things could fall apart so quickly in Israel? And yet, Halkin writes, “I am in a way more hopeful than I was last December.”
You Say You Want a Revelation
Who's afraid of biblical criticism?
Fruit of the Fall
The forbidden fruit has been said to be anything from a fig to a banana, so how did the world settle on an apple?
Mysterious Mishnah
According to a midrash, God will tell the contending nations: “He who possesses my mystery—he is my son.” And when they ask “What is your mystery?” God will reply, “It is the Mishnah.” How do you translate a mystery?
The Adjectival Liberal and The Kingship of God
Michael Walzer is one of our great defenders of liberal democracy, but does his vision exclude religious Jews?
Kidnapped!
When Ruth Blau met with Khomeini to secure the safety of Iranian Jews, it was only the latest extraordinary meeting for the fifty-seven year old Resistance spy turned convert turned kidnapper turned anti-Zionist turned Israeli agent.