A Serious Comedy
In A Serious Man, the Coen Brothers found a way to address the realest of subjects—their own childhood, their own sense of Judaism—without sacrificing their style; they “grew up” without losing their humor.
American Gods
One need not buy into the cultural importance of “Snapewives” to accept that the digital age is one in which individuals demand narratives, practices, and communities they find personally meaningful.
Horace Kallen, George Washington, and the Borah Affair
Was a quote from George Washington about isolationism real or fake, as Senator William Borah maintained, in a serious blow to Horace Kallen’s reputation?
Jonah: The Sequels
“And shall I not care about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not yet know their right hand from their left, and many beasts as well?”
Our Lady in Tehran
In Tehran, the Mossad has orchestrated a complex and brazen operation as part of a last-ditch effort to cut the capital’s power supply so that the Israeli Air Force can take out Iran’s nuclear program
The Wizard of Words and the Baggy Monster: Rereading Amos Oz’s A Tale of Love and Darkness
Israelis made Amos Oz a cultural symbol—almost a fetish—of who they thought they were or fancied themselves to be. But their adoration wasn't unconditional. Oz's editor, literary scholar Yigal Schwartz, called Israel’s unbalanced relationship with Oz a “bipolar reading disorder."
“With a Wolf in One Eye”: Sutzkever in Israel
From his birth just outside Vilna in 1913, Abraham Sutzkever led a life that had merged, as though on a God-ordained path, with the fate of the Jewish people in the 20th century. It of course follows that that life would reach its culmination in Israel.
The Mayor and the Massena Blood Libel
When State Trooper Corporal H. M. “Mickey” McCann asked if it was true that Jews offered human sacrifices on holy days, the diminutive rabbi responded with a tongue-lashing that may have reminded McCann, a veteran of the Great War, of his drill sergeant.
Tragedy and Power
Barry Gewen’s new book argues that Henry Kissinger's "hardheaded Realism” was born of his family’s tragic experience in Nazi Germany.
All That Is Solid
The Lehman Trilogy, both the novel and the play, are mythic in scale, using three generations of the Lehman family (one per section of the “trilogy”) as characters in a didactic pageant about capitalism, America, modernity—and Jewishness, which plays an unsavory role in the proceedings.