Hollywood and Jerusalem
It would be marvelous to tell you that right after the meeting I strode indignantly to my forest-green Porsche, wheeled onto the Santa Monica Freeway, sped eastward on I-10 past Palm Springs, and didn’t stop till I got to Jerusalem. But that would be untrue.
My Father, Milton Himmelfarb
Personal reflections on the legacy of a sui generis Jewish American sociographer and essayist.
Reader Review Competition
Review a book for us and perhaps win a book in return!
The Jewish Preview of Books—October 2018
A quick look at Jewish books being published this month.
Remembering Walter Laqueur
Like the man himself, the pieces Laqueur wrote for JRB contain enormous insight and breadth.
Korean Talmud, Is Modern Orthodoxy like Classical Reform? and Jesus and the Baal Shem Tov
A round-up of three new and notable articles in Jewish studies.
The Peculiar History of the Etrog
How an obscure Chinese fruit became a centerpiece of Sukkot and a symbol of Judaism.
Kol Nidre with Dragons
One of the most spectacular books of medieval Ashkenaz, the Leipzig Mahzor, contains a stunning illumination for the opening of Yom Kippur.
The Day Turned
One of Lea Goldberg’s last poems was inspired by a prayer from the Yom Kippur liturgy.
A Normal Israel?
Zionism has long based its claim to sovereignty on the universal right to national self-determination, and the phrase “like all other nations” has been incorporated into Israel’s Declaration of Independence, yet the goal of “normalization” has proven to be much more complicated than most early Zionists had thought.