Book Review | A Writer Who Opened Doors
How tragic that we recently lost one of Israel’s great writers—Ronit Matalon—who died at the young age of 58....
Arts & Culture
Poem | A Little Girl’s 1930s Dirge
“Turn off your lights! / Turn them off! / Heh heh heh,” the radio coughs. / The Olga Coal Company presents...
The Kabbalah of Noah Baumbach
For a long time I’ve been trying to figure out why I love Noah Baumbach’s movies so much. And as a Jewish creative who often prefers the company of books and films to people, I see a little bit too much of myself in them,...
In ‘Soon By You,’ Leah Gottfried Tells Stories About Modern Orthodox Dating
When Soon By You, a comic web series, started its life as a 15-minute film in 2016, the prospect of a series seemed unattainable—though “it was certainly a dream.”...
My People in Cartoons
A combination of misanthropy and compassion for your fellow humans, and at least some ability to draw and write—this is what makes a cartoonist....
In ‘The Kingmaker,’ Lauren Greenfield Explores Rewritten Histories
"I’ve often had access to 'inside worlds,' whether it’s media or wealth or celebrity, where I’ve then taken a critical perspective."...
Book Review | The Passions of a Prime Minister, Revealed
The big question posed by Tom Segev’s biography of Israel’s founding prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, is this: What quality did people see in Ben-Gurion that made him indispensable, when so many other qualities made him plainly impossible?...
In ‘Call Me by Your Name’ Sequel, a Chance at Second Love
If Call Me by Your Name, the bestselling 2007 romance novel by André Aciman, was an ode to the passions and discoveries of a first love, then Aciman’s new sequel, Find Me, asks us to believe in something much more perilous: second love....
Directors and Dictators: Jewish Films at the Chicago International Film Festival
A preview of some of the films from this year's Chicago International Film Festival....
‘Transparent’ Leaves This World a Stranger to Itself
The show has always played with its central family’s Jewish identity and customs in offbeat, transgressive ways, allowing the gender politics and arrested development of its central characters to twist their relationship to their own faith....