Letters
Letters, Fall 2022
Day School and State; An Apocryphal Footnote; Confirmed as Drowned, and more
Features
Think Over My Lesson and Try to Destroy It
When Levinas met a vagabond called Chouchani, he told a friend, “I cannot tell what he knows, all I can say is that all that I know, he knows.” Now that we have dozens of Chouchani’s notebooks, can we finally know what he knew?
Reviews
From King James to Koren
The new Koren Tanakh smoothly addresses some thorny questions of biblical translation, including this one: Are there dolphins in the Torah?
No Balm
A new book on talmudic medicine illustrates the ills of modern academia, argues Shai Secunda.
Missing Notes
There was a time when Jewish artists set the tone for North African music, but now only echoes remain.
Radically Enlightened Jews
Jonathan Israel is a minyan of modern revolutionaries.
Frenemies, A Love Story
A new look at the most unlikely alliance that brought the Jewish State into being.
The Blessings of Manasia
His father recited Modeh Ani every morning and ordered a set of tefillin from Mumbai. Unaware that they were meant to be worn and not merely kept, he put them away on a shelf.
Insiders and Outsiders
The Jewish sect that rejected cholent.
The Golem of Montreal
The famous golem of Prague was invented by a forger, faith healer, amulet salesman–and the most enterprising kosher chicken slaughterhouse supervisor of Montreal.
People of the Book World
"The Jewish market has become quite a good one,” a Knopf editor observed; even the “goy polloi” were buying, wrote another staffer.
Chaim Grade: Portrait of the Artist as a Bareheaded Rosh Yeshiva
Grade attempted to perform the impossible: to undo in literature what had occurred in history and revive the dead of Jewish Vilna.
The Protocols of Neoliberalism
Baram’s characters are righteously indignant at the system and determined to bring it down.
Readings
“The One You Love”? A Case of Divine Disappointment
Which son did Abraham favor? Reading "the binding of Isaac" with fresh eyes.
The Wry Comedy of A. B. Yehoshua
Remembering the ebullient spirit and radical fiction of A. B. Yehoshua.
First Person
It Was Like This: Excerpts from an Academic Memoir
Scenes from Anita Shapira’s gripping memoir.
Walking with Walter Benjamin
On losing one’s self in Walter Benjamin’s final wanderings.
Lost & Found
I Am My Own Lady Messiah
"As you know, I have no white horse, and, as you also know, the subway is on strike." Unpublished letters and fiction from a brilliant Yiddish author.
Last Word
The Most Important Word in the World
For a moment, a literary giant and talmudic genius sparred over the implications of a biblical phrase.
Past Issues
Issue No. 56
Winter 2024
Issue No. 55
Fall 2023
Issue No. 54
Summer 2023
Issue No. 53