Punctuality, Mendelssohn, and Nihilism: Remembering Alexander Altmann
Punctuality seemed like one of the requirements of working with a yekke, the kind of Central European Jew who wore a jacket and tie even if he had no plans to leave the house.
Our Challah Moment
America is having a challah moment that coincides with two food movements in popular culture.
Hasidic Renewal on the Brink of Destruction
Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, a Hasidic communal leader, and Hillel Zeitlin, a writer who sought to bring Yiddish religious books to a new audience, met on the page, and almost certainly in the Warsaw Ghetto.
A Different Kind of Hero
The Nazis may have blamed Herschel Grynszpan for Kristallnacht, but he prevented them from using him in a show trial.
The Ubiquitous Gabirol
Solomon ibn Gabirol plunges into poetry, writes S. Y. Agnon, medabek atzmo be-charuz: glued to his craft, beading words with devotion.
Scholem!: From Berlin to Jerusalem to My House
“Arkush, Arkush. What does that mean?” That was the third question one of the greatest Jewish scholars of the 20th century asked me.
Unquiet Ghosts of the Ghetto
As we mark the 80th anniversary of the fall of Poland to the Germans in World War II, a new documentary gives a glimpse inside the Warsaw Ghetto.
Agnon, Oz, and Me
Over the years, I’ve spoken privately with several Israeli novelists but with only two of the internationally famous ones. And these very brief conversations took place more than 40 years…
A Good Second Choice
Yirimiyahu be-Tzion is a solid work of intellectual history, devoted above all to understanding Judah Magnes as he understood himself, sympathetic but honest, and attentive to the weaknesses as well as the strengths of his thinking.
A Pinch of Levity
Is it true that three people are required to perfect a joke: one to tell it, one to get it, and a third not to get it? Stuart Schoffman tracks a single Jewish joke through multiple tellings.