Letters

Letters, Summer 2017

Ben-Gurion's Yiddish, Foucault on Yom Kippur, Rabin's Solution?, The Lamp and the Flame

Features

Reviews

East Meets West

Following the Six-Day War, the East German government and the West German far left demonized Israel time and again, often vilely equating it with the worst thing in their own nation’s history: Nazism.

Why the Long Face?

David Grossman's newest novel, winner of the Man Booker International Prize, is an arresting, disturbing read with no obvious punch line but one long face.

Inside or Outside?

After the discoveries of the Cairo Geniza and the Dead Sea Scrolls, scholars of Judaism slowly began to reconstruct the 400-year period separating the latest parts of the Hebrew Bible from the earliest rabbinic compilations.

Purity and Obscurity

When contemporary Jews of priestly lineage avoid cemeteries, when ordinary Jews wash their hands before eating, or immerse themselves in ritual baths, they are acting according to the dictates of an ancient system.

The Wandering Reporter

Read 86 years after it was originally published, The Wandering Jew Has Arrived can be seen as a chilling and prophetic piece of historical reportage.

Great Jews in Robes

If Merrick Garland had been successfully confirmed for the seat now occupied by Neil Gorsuch, Jews would have been just one vote shy of constituting a majority on the court.

Readings

The Closing of the American Mind Now

Thirty years ago, a book was published that hit, in the words of the New York Times, “with the approximate force and effect of what electric shock-therapy must be like.” How has it held up? And what does that have to do with the Bible?

The Arts

Lost & Found

Last Word

Past Issues