Got some leisurely reading time on your hands this Hanukkah season? We've got you covered. As the year winds to a close, we asked our editors to round up some of the best books of 2014, for your reading pleasure. Take a break from festivities...
Editor's Note: This story is part of our yearlong anniversary coverage of Jews' involvement in the American Civil Rights Movement. By Dina Weinstein [caption id="attachment_19395" align="alignleft" width="201"] Samstein with Bob Dylan. Photo by Danny Lyon/MAGNUM.[/caption] In the winter of 1963, a 25-year-old doctoral student at the University of...
It’s the time of the year when we begin to talk about oil. Not just the kind that heats homes, but the kind that burned in the Tabernacle of the Temple—that is, olive oil....
Lecha Dodi // According to tradition, Mordechai led the way. When the day was expiring, he emerged from his house in white garments. The cares of the working week fell away, and he prepared with discreet joy for the Sabbath. His hair, just visible under...
Longtime science lover Adam Ruben spends his days in a lab coat, peering down a microscope in search for a malaria vaccine. But by night, the Sanaria Inc researcher takes to the stage, cracking up crowds as a professional comedian in Washington, DC. Ruben performs at Capital...
Are there aspects of Judaism that encourage arrogance—or that help guard against it?...
Full disclosure: I am not a biblical or Talmudic scholar. As a professor of literature, I have taught selections from the Bible in humanities courses. I think of myself as a secular humanist and an agnostic interested in understanding the role of religion in the...
French anti-Semitism, c’est une vieille histoire. True, following the Revolution, les Juifs were liberated from their ghettos. True, the Jewish Leon Blum was elected prime minister of France during the late 1930s. And true, except for the United States and Israel, no other country contains...
Be wary of historical fiction, especially if it’s good. It will forever mix up in your mind what actually happened, or what we can be fairly certain happened, with the inventions of playwrights and novelists, whose aim might be to draw a deeper meaning from...
Knish: In Search of the Jewish Soul Food Laura Silver Brandeis University Press 2014, pp. 275, $24.95 [divider] by Gloria Levitas Reader alert: I am not now nor have I ever been a knish enthusiast. I find most knishes too doughy, too heavy and much too filling. So I approached this attractive volume warily....