Torah and the Thermodynamics of Life: An Interview with Jeremy England
Hailed by some as the next Darwin, immortalized as a character in a Dan Brown novel, Jeremy England discusses religion and science, his background, and his intellectual influences.
Vive la Differénce! A Rejoinder to Joshua Holo
The final installment in an exchange between Elli Fischer and Joshua Holo about Michael Chabon's controversial commencement address at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.
Boundaries, Conversations, and the Reform Movement: A Response to Elli Fischer
Hebrew Union College dean Joshua Holo weighs in on Michael Chabon’s controversial commencement address.
33 Days and Four Years
Leon Werth chronicled both the chaotic flight of French civilians from the advancing Germans and the long years of a French Jew living in "free" France.
A Book and a Sword in the Vilna Ghetto
If the destruction of Jewish culture and Jewish life were intertwined, then the reverse was also true: The rescue of books, manuscripts, Torahs, and so on was almost as much a form of resistance as the preservation of life itself.
Containing God’s Presence
The Torah reading cycle provides the structure not just for the Jewish year but also for countless volumes of commentary on the biblical text.
Dress British, Think Yiddish
Stanley Kubrick was a New York Jew, fascinated with photography, jazz, and chess. He took evening classes at City College and studied at Columbia with Lionel Trilling.
Du Bois, the Warsaw Ghetto, and a Priestly Blessing
When the editors at Jewish Life asked the venerable civil rights leader W. E. B. Du Bois to speak about the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, they had no idea that it would lead to a priestly blessing.
Free Radicals
The history of American anarchists, and of Jewish anarchists in particular, has been forgotten, largely overshadowed by the history of the American communist movement.
In the Melting Pot
More than a century after Zangwill's play debuted, the melting pot is still bubbling. What does that really mean for American Jewry?