Pour Out Your Fury
When the Bavarian government confiscated thousands of books from monasteries in 1803, among them was an utterly unique haggadah.
Saving the World
There are at least two problems with the widely repeated narrative about Rosenzweig's sudden commitment to Judaism: It’s historically false and philosophically pernicious.
The Kid from the Haggadah
A 1944 poem, translated by Dan Ben-Amos.
The Quality of Rachmones
Howard Jacobson's Shylock Is My Name is dead serious and very funny, high criticism and low comedy.
A Cipher and His Songs
Avraham Halfi faced outward, a gifted comic performer, and inward, a lyric poet of resonant privacy.
A Harem of Translators
Singer insisted that all foreign-language translations of his work be based on the English versions. And most of them were done by young women who closer to typist-editors than true translators.
A Party in Boisk
The bodily joy a group of Boiskers took in fulfilling the commandment to study Torah is still surprising, and that may have something to do with the Torah they chose to study.
A Walk in Jerusalem
Jews and Arabs live separately and are rarely friends, but they deal with each other constantly. The city can’t function otherwise. A walk in the Old City under a cloud of unease.
Letters, Winter 2016
JTS, American Judaism, and Conditional Synagogues
Not by the Rivers of Babylon
It turns out that Israel sits on a “saddle point” between four weather systems. The rabbis of the Talmud didn’t know that, but they did have some interesting things to say about rain.