Letters, Winter 2017
Critical Powers, Pity the Poor Irisher, Evil Inkblots, Theologico-Political Query, Funny but Serious, A Day at the Races
Memory and Desecration in Salonica
Memory and a vandalized memorial in a once-Jewish city on the Aegean Sea.
Our Kind of Traitor
More than 40 years after the Yom Kippur War, some of its battles rage on, including the debate over the spy Ashraf Marwan’s true loyalty.
The Genius of Bernard-Henri Lévy
Bernard-Henri Lévy's amour propre, while immense, does not quite extend to regarding his life as exemplary in its Jewishness, nor to tying all of his political actions to Judaism.
The Lamp of Zion
Over time, the menorah has morphed from a nostalgia-evoking relic of the past to a nation-inspiring symbol pointing forward.
Three Portraits of Jewish Excellence—at 29
At the age of 29, David Ben-Gurion was speaking to empty halls across America for the Zionist movement and Leo Strauss was finding the “theological-political predicament” insoluble. As for Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, he was in Berlin worrying about epistemology and halakha. Three portraits of Jewish excellence in the making.
Twilight of the Anti-Semites
Nietzsche’s reception has been sharply divided between anti-Semitic and philo-Semitic readings. Richard C. Holub's new book explores how the philosopher's views changed over time and whether some of his statements about Jews should be attributed to another hand.
Waiting for Moshe Right
The web series Soon by You is part Seinfeld, part Srugim.
What They Talk About When They Talk About Golems
On golems and global conspiracy theories.
What’s Yichus Got to Do with It?
For the whole history of Jewish society, until less than two hundred years ago, love and attraction played little or no role in the making of marriages, which were arranged and contracted according to the interests—commercial, religious, and social—of the families involved.