There He Goes Again
Foer departs from Roth’s model in many ways; perhaps most unsettling is the fact that he confuses crassness for humor.
Zion and Party Politics, 1944
In the summer of 1944 support for Zionism was transformed from a low-risk political gesture to a bona fide election issue. FDR was not pleased.
Eight Poetic Fragments by Avraham ben Yizhak
Some of Abraham Sonne's lines are so gorgeous that one commits them to memory almost unthinkingly.
Kibitzing in God’s Country
It may come as a surprise that there is an entirely different Catskills, a Catskills that doesn't involve Grossinger's, bungalow colonies, or Jews, in the words of Billy Crystal, eating "like Vikings."
Letters, Summer 2016
Existential Presences and Slippery Slopes, A Pesca con Groucho, Groucho v. Schoenberg, and a Correction
Max, Moritz, and Marx
When the Soviet official asked me about the second book I was carrying, I said rather nonchalantly that this was my Hebrew translation of Karl Marx’s Early Writings, which I was going to give to my hosts.
Nuclear Family
Part of the artistry of Shtisel derives from an almost ritualistic obsession with the details that ultra-Orthodox Jews themselves obsess over.
Old Isaiah
When Woodrow Wilson became the first president to nominate a Jew for a seat on the Supreme Court, much of the opposition to his appointment revolved around his Jewishness.
Our Rabbis J, E, P, and D
At the heart of Benjamin D. Sommer’s project is a contrast between the stenographic theory of revelation and what he calls the “participatory” theory, which “puts a premium on human agency and gives witness to the grandeur of a God who accomplishes a providential task through the free will of human subjects under God’s authority.”
Passport Sepharad
The recent offers of citizenship by Spain and Portugal tap into a long, rich, and complicated Sephardi history of dubious passports, desperate backup plans, and extraterritorial dreams.