The Jewish Critic and the Devil’s Point of View
We have never met this Mendele before, but he expects us to trust him, appreciate his wit, catch his references, and share his attitudes. In a few deft lines, the author created a figure so democratic you don’t have to look up to him, so familiar you don’t have to fear him, and so appealing you won’t realize you’re being flogged.
18 Questions with Jeremy Dauber: The Purim Edition
Who ruled the Borscht Belt: Allan Sherman or Lenny Bruce? Jewish comedy expert Jeremy Dauber casts his vote in a humorous interview—just in time for Purim.
The Mortara Affair, Redux
Bologna, 1857: A six-year old is taken from his Jewish family to be raised a Catholic. Why are we still talking about this case? An archbishop responds.
Shababshubap
Black hat chic: Shai Secunda's review of Shababnikim, the new television show about cool yeshiva students.
18 Questions with Dara Horn
Dara Horn’s new novel, Eternal Life, is out today. We caught up with her and asked her 18 questions.
Lost Music
Jeffrey M. Green, Aharon Appelfeld’s translator for more than 30 years, remembers the beloved Israeli novelist.
Rachel and Her Children
blurb.
“The Point of Free Will”: A Response to Abraham Socher
For mussarists, the internal struggle between good and evil is the great cosmic and spiritual drama, a position entirely in line with the conventional rabbinic view of moral decision-making.
100 Years of Solicitude: Commemorating Balfour
The controversies over how (and whether) Great Britain should celebrate the recent centenary of the Balfour Declaration were revealing. Anglo-Israel relations have rarely been uncomplicated, but they could soon be much worse.
A Complex Network of Pipes
You couldn’t know Yehuda Amichai without being struck by the casual way in which original and sometimes startling metaphors dropped from him in ordinary conversation. It wasn’t done for effect. It was just the way his mind worked. One thing made him think of another and what it made him think of was generally something that would not have occurred to anyone else.