Winter 2013

Letters

Letters, Winter 2013

The Living Language, Hefker Hasidim, Exodus on a Banana Boat?

Features

The Child Was Circumcised

The circumcision controversy in Germany has been heating up, but it's not the first time. The discussion has been going for centuries and has involved differing levels of overt anti-Semitism.

Exploring Israel's culinary culture with two new, very different books about cooking. Jerusalem expats Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi have put out a cookbook with remarkable fusions and creations inspired by the holy city, while Abbie Rosner explores the biblical cuisine of the Galilee.

Reviews

Father Abraham

Martin S. Jaffee

Jews, Muslims, and Christians all revere Abraham. But is it the same Abraham?

The People of the Book – Since When?

Haym Soloveitchik

A new book seeks to overturn everything we know about the history of the Talmud.

Himmelfarb, George Eliot, and the Jews

Ruth R. Wisse

English philo-Semitism, in fiction and reality.

The Language of Babylon

Michael Weingrad

The Jewish scholar of Arab literature Sasson Somekh's new autobiography is the latest in a line of memoirs of Jewish Baghdad.

Adventure Story

Allan Arkush

Anita Shapira's new book raises the bar for short histories of Israel.

MAD Maus

Arie Kaplan

A look inside the making of Art Spiegelman's classic graphic novel about the Holocaust.

Movies and Monotheism

Julian Levinson

At age 97, Herman Wouk returns to Moses and goes postmodern.

Readings

Wonder and Indignation: Abraham’s Uneasy Faith

Shai Held

A famous midrash describes Abraham's encounter with an illuminated palace, or was it a burning palace?

With Words We Govern Men

Suzanne Garment

In November 1975, US Ambassador to the UN Daniel Patrick Moynihan launched an empassioned battle against the "Zionism is Racism" resolution. A new book on the subject spurs memories of working with him at that historic moment.