Dara Horn

The Allure of Dead Jews: A Conversation with Dara Horn

Dara Horn

Prizewinning novelist Dara Horn has a new book of essays out, People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present. Horn joined JRB editor Abraham Socher for a conversation on October 14, and you can watch it now.

Steven J. Zipperstein

From Pogroms to Philip Roth

with Steven J. Zipperstein

Stanford professor Steven J. Zipperstein and JRB editor Abraham Socher discuss Philip Roth’s life and work, the recent controversy over his authorized biography, and the biography of Roth he is working on now.

Says Who?

Abraham Socher

Peter Berger listened to me patiently, and then he said, “You can come to see me, but”—and here he spoke with heavy emphasis—“it sounds like you have read my books . . . and I haven’t thought of anything new.”

Is Love Stronger than Death?

Abraham Socher

Near the outset of his book about mortality, Hillel Halkin has fallen into a grave, gazed at the remnants of a skull, succinctly described ancient Israelite burial practices, and vividly illustrated the ritual and material basis for that resonant biblical phrase in which the dead are “gathered to their ancestors.”

It’s Spring Again

It’s Spring Again

Abraham Socher

A startling painting on the walls of the ancient synagogue at Dura Europos depicts some 2nd-century Jews who have, until recently, been dead and who look very surprised to have been reconstituted and revived.

A Party in Boisk

Abraham Socher

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.

Live Wire

Abraham Socher

Bellow’s not so innocent knock in The Adventures of Augie March is generally taken as the moment when Jews barged into American literature without apology.

Hebrew School Days

Hebrew School Days

Abraham Socher

“Of course, I had myself gone to Hebrew school—that’s what we always called it though very little Hebrew was ever learned—through most of elementary school. I’d walk the five blocks down Bancroft . . .”

The Chabad Paradox

The Chabad Paradox

Abraham Socher

Despite its tiny numbers, the Hasidic group known as Chabad or Lubavitch has transformed the Jewish world. Not only the most successful contemporary Hasidic sect, it might be the most successful Jewish religious movement of the second half of the twentieth century. But two new books raise provocative questions about it.