Opinion | In Praise of Tribalism
Thoughts on two eight-year-old converts—and Michael Chabon.
Welcome to Our Summer Books Issue
When I was in second grade my mother told me to read upside down. “You’re reading too fast,” she said, “it’s upsetting the teacher.” She had been instructed to do this as a child, and it was only natural for her to pass this wisdom on to me. Even now, I occasionally flip the book over in order to savor the story.
What Do Memes Tell Us About Jewish Identity?
The plurality of Jewish meme pages reflects the plurality of perspectives on Judaism.
In ‘209 rue Saint-Maur,’ Family Separation in Occupied France
209 rue Saint-Maur, Paris, 10ème—The Neighbours opens with shots of a Parisian tenement building as a mother tells her child the story of the three little pigs. The comforting voice-over drifts off as the mother pig tells her children that she cannot care for them any longer, foreshadowing themes of separation, struggle, threat and terror that are still relevant today.
In a New Documentary, Gilda Radner Returns to the Screen
Gilda Radner brought laughter and love to audiences all over with her skits on Saturday Night Live and her one-woman Broadway show.
‘#MeToo Meets the Apocrypha’: Folk-Rock Group Combines Judaism and Activism
Inspired by Jewish biblical texts and themes, the music also comments on a variety of modern American political issues, including environmentalism, women’s empowerment and LGBTQ rights.
Discovering Science in the Zohar
Throughout The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown extols the importance of the Zohar, the classic book of Kabbalah, as an incredible source of knowledge from which...
Philip Roth: A Writer and His People
Over the course of his remarkable career, Philip Roth received nearly every literary award imaginable. One of these prizes was an honorary doctorate from the...
Staff Picks: Madame Secretary, Modern Midrash and Melanie Phillips
What we’re reading—and watching—this week.
Poem | Of All the Peoples by Nathan Alterman
When under the gallows our children cried
We did not hear the world’s wrath.
For of all the peoples you selected us
For us you loved and sanctified.
For...
Book Review | A Rich Brew: How Cafés Created Modern Jewish Culture by Shachar Pinsker
Since their origin in the early 1500s in Yemen and elsewhere in the Arab world, coffee houses have provided an important social meeting place for people from all walks of life, especially creative, political and business types.
Book Review | Harvey Milk by Lillian Faderman
Last April, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to name the main terminal at San Francisco International Airport after Harvey Milk, the gay rights martyr who was assassinated 40 years ago. The decision further (and literally) cements Milk’s legacy as the best-known LGBT activist in American history.