From the Archives | Are Jews Still Funny?
In 1979 Time magazine, the quintessential barometer of American life, told the nation that even though Jews made up only 3 percent of the population, 80 percent of America’s working comedians were Jewish.
Poem | The Poem I Wrote Two Days After the Election Was Called
That morning broke just as beautifully as the two
days before. Having celebrated—the shouts called us out
from wherever we were—we did dance in the streets,
the glee...
Essay | Searching for Solomon Cohen
Own a piece of history! This was what the listing for the “Solomon Cohen House,” built in 1875, urged prospective buyers to do.
A Dog’s Eye View of the Holocaust
In her latest film review, Dina Gold discusses Shepherd: The Story of a Jewish Dog, which opened in movie theaters on May 28.
Poem | The Season When My Life Turned
I have been the first person awake in my house every morning of my life.
Fiction | The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land
Simcha was the man who sold air from the Holy Land, not to be confused with those unimaginative con artists who sold oil from the Oily Land or water from the Dead Sea.
What Is Your Favorite Jewish Joke—And Why?
What Is Your Favorite Jewish Joke—And Why?
Jokes, including the Jewish variety, are a staple of Western civilization. Some Jewish jokes have been around for centuries...
To All Who Call in Truth with Former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren and Journalist A.J. Jacobs
Former Israeli ambassador to the United States, former Knesset member, historian and prolific author Michael Oren discusses his latest novel, To All Who Call in Truth, a story about passion, betrayal, adolescence, and murder, drawing on his own experiences as a teenager growing up in New Jersey in the early 1970s. He also talks about current events in Israel. Michael is in conversation with journalist and bestselling New York Times author A.J. Jacobs.
Book Review | When Honor Fades
Morningside Heights
By Joshua Henkin
Knopf Doubleday; 304 pp.; $26.95
During the early days of the pandemic, I noticed many readers craving dramatic stories in exotic settings to...
Book Review | Greed, Drugs and Philanthropy
In this time of corrective unnamings—to remove traces of admiration or gratitude for the morally reevaluated—the names of unrepentant slaveholders, Confederate generals, contemporary sexual predators and other assorted wrongdoers have been erased or proposed for erasure from college dorms, military bases, city streets and more.
Book Review | Waiting for the Messiah in Williamsburg
How did the Satmar Hasidim come to dominate the Brooklyn neighborhood known as Williamsburg?
Book Review | Building Community One Tile at a Time
At the Museum at Eldridge Street’s Egg Rolls, Egg Creams and Empanadas street festival—a celebration of Ashkenazi Jewish, Chinese and Puerto Rican communities held each summer (pre-pandemic) on New York’s Lower East Side—groups of Chinese Americans and American Jewish women play mahjong side by side, sometimes pausing to teach younger festivalgoers how to play.