The Natural at 70
Bernard Malamud’s 1952 fable has always seemed the most American of Jewish novels and the most Jewish story in American folklore.
Jews in Trench Coats
From mortal risks to the mundane office politics and antisemitic prejudice, Douglas London’s memoir of working for the CIA reveals the inner workings of America’s most secretive agency.
The Bible’s Women in Medieval Ashkenaz
The Bible’s characters were everywhere in medieval Ashkenaz. Jews remembered them when they prayed, attended births and weddings, when they opened a haggada.
Are We all Kahanists Now?
Shaul Magid attempts to show us how much contemporary Jews have inherited from a man most have tried to forget.
Godly Guardrails and Secular Assumptions
Ilana M. Horwitz convincingly argues that religious students are high achievers. But what’s the special sauce that makes it so, and who gets to decide what counts as an achievement?
Wandering Jews
Jews have been travelers since God told Abraham to get up and go. How deeply has this constant motion been imprinted on the Jewish psyche?
Love, Counter-Historical Style
Love letters to Israel, Judaism, and each other from Rachel and David Biale.
Inside-Out
The boundaries between the biblical canon and the Apocrypha have seemed firm for a long time. But what if the walls aren’t that solid?
Hardware, Software—or Love?
Maimonides’s Abraham was a natural philosopher who discovered God through reason, but the biblical Abraham did nothing at all to earn God’s election.
Wishful Republic
What lessons can be learned from the city of Haifa, and what does its culture suggest about the likelihood and limitations of a binational state?