Summer 2022

Letters, Summer 2022

Orthodox Lens; Kafka's Gimel; True Crime or Conspiracy Theory?; Of Censorship and Naughty Boys, and more

Inside-Out

Malka Z. Simkovich

The boundaries between the biblical canon and the Apocrypha have seemed firm for a long time. But what if the walls aren’t that solid?

Wandering Jews

Shai Secunda

Jews have been travelers since God told Abraham to get up and go. How deeply has this constant motion been imprinted on the Jewish psyche?

The Bible’s Women in Medieval Ashkenaz

Eve Krakowski

The Bible’s characters were everywhere in medieval Ashkenaz. Jews remembered them when they prayed, attended births and weddings, when they opened a haggada.

The Art of the Dealer

Jonathan Karp

"What would have happened to us," Picasso wondered, " if Kahnweiler had not had a business sense?"

Revolution, the Jews, and Hitler’s Munich

Steven E. Aschheim

How did a Jewish Socialist become the revolutionary leader of the People’s State of Bavaria? And did his brief career provoke the rise of Hitler?

Wishful Republic

David Barak-Gorodetsky

What lessons can be learned from the city of Haifa, and what does its culture suggest about the likelihood and limitations of a binational state?

Hardware, Software—or Love?

Shai Held

Maimonides’s Abraham was a natural philosopher who discovered God through reason, but the biblical Abraham did nothing at all to earn God’s election.

Love, Counter-Historical Style

Allan Arkush

Love letters to Israel, Judaism, and each other from Rachel and David Biale.

Godly Guardrails and Secular Assumptions

Michal Leibowitz

Ilana M. Horwitz convincingly argues that religious students are high achievers. But what’s the special sauce that makes it so, and who gets to decide what counts as an achievement?

Are We all Kahanists Now?

Sara Yael Hirschhorn

Shaul Magid attempts to show us how much contemporary Jews have inherited from a man most have tried to forget.

Jews in Trench Coats

A.E. Smith

From mortal risks to the mundane office politics and antisemitic prejudice, Douglas London’s memoir of working for the CIA reveals the inner workings of America’s most secretive agency.

The Natural at 70

Rich Cohen

Bernard Malamud’s 1952 fable has always seemed the most American of Jewish novels and the most Jewish story in American folklore.

Confirmed as Drowned

Mark Glanville

Haunting verses from the only living male survivor of the Jewish community of Crete.

Us or Them

Noah Millman

​​It all started with a tweet: “Curious about your whiteness? Come to our meeting.” Edelman was curious.

Moisés Ville

Jevel Katz

A joyful poem about the Jerusalem of Argentina, translated by Ilan Stavans.

Jews and the Ukrainian Question

Marci Shore

“After the victory,” he wrote to his friend, “we’ll play music—Jewish music, Ukrainian music, and not only.”