Winter 2025

Letters

Letters, Winter 2025

Life and Capital; Picking Up the Tablets; and Work Conquers All

Reviews

Dusting Off the Old Stories

Richard Kreitner

What does the Jewish experience in the Revolutionary War say about America?

Boy Meets Girl Meets Apocalypse

Akiva Schick

American Jewish novelists have been writing about Israel for decades, but the surprising impulse to destroy it is relatively new.

A Need for Roots

Adam Kirsch

Simone Weil was obsessed with communal roots but rejected Jewish solidarity in the midst of World War II—and became a saint to many Catholic intellectuals.

Our Misfortune

Allan Arkush

A Jewish takeover of nineteenth century Berlin would have been news to German Jews, but highbrow antisemites believed it.

Look Ma, No Hands!

Jesse Tisch

Everyone’s a critic, but especially Joseph Epstein.

Readings

Scattered Seeds: The Origins of Diaspora

Malka Z. Simkovich

Who invented the diaspora, and what did ancient Jews think about it . . . in the diaspora?

Who Accuses?

Lauren Gottlieb Lockshin

Émile Zola’s J’accuse...! might be modern journalism’s most famous headline. But whose idea was it?

Bellow after Gaza: Rereading To Jerusalem and Back

Elliot Kaufman

The real Jerusalem syndrome isn’t the one your tour guide told you about. It’s what Saul Bellow experienced on his 1975 trip.

Fiction

“I’m Eighty-Five Years Old, Bubba’leh”

Ariel Horowitz, Yardenne Greenspan

"Feel free to also call me ‘Rabbi’ or ‘Professor.’ Neither offends me. No, not ‘Motti.’ Never ‘Motti.’ If you want to call someone Motti, why don’t you go downstairs and talk to the guy at the corner store?" An excerpt from The Ghost Editor.

Reflections

“As Long as You’re Healthy”: Paul Mendes-Flohr (1941–2024)

Benjamin Balint

Paul Mendes-Flohr first encountered the teachings of Martin Buber while volunteering at a kibbutz in northern Israel. At the time, he said with characteristic self-deprecation, “I didn’t understand a word.”