Spring 2023

Letters, Spring 2023

Cliff-Hangers When I first read Hillel Halkin’s assertion in “On That Distant Day” (Winter 2023) that “for years now, Israel has seemed to me like a man sleepwalking toward a…

History—and Israel—from the Outside In

Motti Golani, Jehuda Reinharz

Chaim Weizmann's outsider view of the Yishuv often led to conflict with the Zionist leaders based in British Mandatory Palestine. But it was precisely that perspective that present-day historians (and arguably Israelis) would do well to recover.

Israel’s Declaration of Independence: A Biography

Neil Rogachevsky, Dov Zigler

Who wrote Israel's founding document and how does it express Israel’s values?

Prince of the Lost Tribes

Matt Goldish

Years before Shabbtai Zevi emerged, another Jewish radical tore across Europe, gathering followers and generating dissent.

Roots in Heaven, Branches on Earth

Avinoam J. Stillman

Nothing sounds more idolatrous than drawing God. But that is just what a diverse bunch of medieval Jewish visionaries and scribblers set out to do.

Nothing but Literature

Robert Alter

Kafka’s unabridged diaries are, for the first time, available in English. What do they teach us about a man who was a lacuna of himself?

Satmar, American-Style

Daniel B. Schwartz

The explosive growth of Satmar Hasidim has shocked and worried many who see their culture as un-American. But two new books argue it was only in America that the sect could have flourished at all.

When Canines Were in the Land

Allan Arkush

Did dogs save the Jewish State?

Coming of Age in the Sephardi Diaspora

Sarah Abrevaya Stein

Elizabeth Graver’s new novel shines a light on the Sephardi experience.

A Little Arabic within Our Hebrew

Meir Buzaglo

Tracing lines of a linguistic heritage through Hebrew poetry.

Bookstore or Beis Medresh

Aaron Tugendhaft

How I learned to stop worrying and love to browse.

Tangled Truly

David Mikics

Letters of ink. Letters of the heart.

Bind Them as a Sign: A Photo Essay

Agnieszka Traczewska, Shai Secunda

A Hasidic-owned, bicycle-powered tefillin factory in Krakow, Poland.

Freud as Talmudist

Adam Kirsch

We now understand Sigmund Freud as an anxious Jewish humanist, not the intrepid scientific investigator he thought himself to be. Does that help explain why his interpretations seem so talmudic?

Dead Sea Walking

Shay Rabineau

Shay Rabineau had a simple plan: circle the Dead Sea on foot in two weeks while navigating treacherous heights, marshy flats, military checkpoints, and ad hoc baptisms. What could go wrong?