Letters
Letters, Summer 2026
Scribal Origins; Kaplan, Heschel, and God; and The Rav's Legacy.
Features
The Weitzman Museum’s Thirteen-Gun Salute
When, in 1776, the Andrew Doria announced itself with a thirteen-gun salute (one for each new state), the Dutch authorities in St. Eustatius cordially responded in kind. The Weitzman Museum’s new exhibit tells the Jewish backstory.
Reviews
Mourner in Zion
Dara Horn reviews Rachel Goldberg-Polin’s new memoir.
Rabbi to the Stars
A bitterly funny roman à clef about a Reform temple and 1930s Hollywood is more Sunset Boulevard than Wilshire Boulevard.
Empire State of Mind
Zionism's goal was auto-emancipation, which didn’t mean there weren’t empires to deal with.
Rock Nazis
Nazi influence on pop music can be found here, there and everywhere.
When Juliet Became Jael
And how Othello became Ithiel, with the help of an ambivalent convert from Judaism and a founding figure of Zionism.
Khapped!
How did nineteenth-century Russian Jewish cantonists and twentieth-century Soviet Refuseniks manage to cling to their Judaism?
Kindness and Truth
How a construction worker became the tzaddik of Melbourne.
Readings
Cover Story
Where did the kippa come from?
Vendyl Jones and the Temple Incense
Did a Noahide Texan decipher the Copper Scroll and find an ancient cache of incense?
Reflections
Angels, Chickens, and the Debris of History
Inside Berlin’s Bode Museum, Klee’s angel is staring at the exit sign, perhaps like me, looking for a way out.
The Arts
Why Can’t We Be Friends (Again)?
In a new documentary, Henry Louis Gates Jr. argues that the Black-Jewish alliance is imperfect but important, and, he hopes, salvageable.
Reels of Removal: The City Without Jews
The first time Vienna expelled its Jews was in an eerily prescient novel.
Exchange
Balancing Acts: A Response to Shai Secunda
What is the responsibility of a critic?
Overbalanced: A Rejoinder to David Kraemer
What is the responsibility of a historian?
Last Word
Groucho, Berlin, and Me
"So there I was, backstage at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, asking Groucho Marx to show me his watch."
