David Biale
Before & After October 7: A Symposium
We asked distinguished friends and contributors a simple question: what did you believe before October 7 that you no longer believe?
My Path in Jewish Studies: Memoirs of a Counter-Historian
When David Biale told Gershom Scholem that he wanted to work on the history of Jewish sexuality, the great sage of Jerusalem responded, "That's not a field!"
Weird Big Brother
Jacob Frank and his bizarre religious movement still casts a strange spell over. Is Nobel Prize winner Olga Tokarczuk’s newly translated novel the War and Peace of Jewish-Polish heresy?
Blood Delusion
While the blood libel was rooted in Christianity, it also accused Jews of practicing precisely the opposite of what Judaism itself teaches, namely, not to consume blood.
Jewish Acculturation in America: A Symposium
Five leading Jewish thinkers discuss the continuing impact of the American melting pot.
Looking Backward and Forward
Response #2: David Biale revisits his provocative 1998 essay on Jewish assimilation.
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.”
Secularism and Sabbateans
How did the Jews become modern? Three new books trace the roots of Jewish secularization.