Visiting Yemen in the 1980s: A Photo Essay
"Sometimes one really does find that moment and the image seems to capture a person—this particular Jew, this particular way of life—but often one does not and feels the need to return, to try again." But in this case, there are no Jewish communities in Yemen to return to.
“Jacob Gazed into the Distant Future”
In Jacob & Esau: Jewish European History Between Nation and Empire, Malachi Haim Hacohen provides a dense but lucid account of how the history of this typology of sibling rivalry unfolded, first in the later books of the Bible and then, following the invention of a linkage between Edom and the Roman Empire, in rabbinic literature, and, finally, in later Jewish and Christian writings, down to modern times.
Poisoned Gefilte Fish, Broken Heart
In a characteristic turn of phrase, Der Nister wrote that the realization of the possibility of a land for Jews, where they lived under their own sovereignty would be a “brokhe af doyres” (blessing for future generations). The bitter irony is almost unbearable.
Red Light, Green Light
Shadow Strike by Yaakov Katz, the editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post, tells for the first time the full story of the discovery of al-Kibar, the ensuing diplomacy with Washington, and the planning and execution of the Israeli air attack that destroyed the Syrian nuclear reactor.
Letters, Summer 2019
Garden Betrayed, Mysterium Tremendum or Coping Mechanism?, Lucifer in the Details
Learning Yiddish After 60
When I was about 10, I had a brilliant idea. If my parents would agree to speak only Yiddish with each other, it would just come to me without effort. I wouldn't have to learn it or study it, I would just wake up one day knowing it.
“Love Between Writers”: Saul Bellow and Bette Howland
“I thought you knew that I belonged to the Truth Party too,” Bette Howland wrote her fellow novelist, mentor, and sometime lover, Saul Bellow. Her son recently found a new cache of letters between them that illuminates two brilliant artists at work.
In Pursuit of Wholeness: The Book of Ruth in Modern Literature
While not the most dramatic of all the biblical stories, the quietly moving book of Ruth, which we read on Shavuot, continues to resonate in Western literature.
Revisiting Herman Wouk’s City Boy
Remembering Herman Wouk's "gentle mockery at the shopworn pretensions of bohemian poseurs and ethnic Jews passing as nonhyphenated Americans."
Getting Along with the Gentiles
From the Brandeis Book Stall to the sands of Iwo Jima (and halakhic flexibility).