And How Do You Like Israel?
The Six-Day War marked a critical turning point in the evolution of the Western world’s attitude toward Israel.
Common Clay
Virtually nothing of Babylonian Jewry of the talmudic period, from the 3rd to the 6th century C.E., has survived beyond the Babylonian Talmud itself to help contextualize or confirm the many things the text tells its readers.
Fateless: The Beilis Trial a Century Later
The fame of Mendel Beilis—falsely accused of murdering a Christian boy in Russia 100 years ago—was lavish, if bitter and short-lived.
Is Beauty Power?
With charm, business savvy, and determination Kracow-born Rubinstein transformed herself from Chaja to Helena to “Madame.”
Letters, Winter 2015
With Friends Like These, Protective Edge, Cobwebs Cleared, & More
Mashed Potatoes and Meatloaf
From overly familiar ingredients, Joanna Hershon has concocted something that is both satisfying and unexpected.
POLIN: A Light Unto the Nations
How is it that the largest public building to go up in Poland since that country regained its freedom, the first museum to tell the story of Poland from beginning to end, goes by the name of POLIN?
Revealer Revealed
Earlier this year, an email announcement of a publication made its rounds among scholars of Jewish studies. Written in the flowery Hebrew of the Eastern European Jewish Enlightenment, the advertisement proclaimed that the work would “reveal all secrets.”
Shifting Sands
Shlomo Sand believes that nations are, in the nature of the case, modern inventions, and that Israel is a particularly bad one.
Silence of the Lambs
Sacrifice is both foreign and familiar. Actually sacrificing an animal is difficult to imagine, and yet we continue to speak freely of sacrifice in connection with political and moral obligations.