Arts & Culture

Living, reading, watching and listening Jewishly—that’s the crux of Moment’s Arts & Culture section. Here you can find book reviews, poetry, fiction, art and music. Don’t miss our fantastic interviews with artists and musicians.

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The First Hanukkah By Andy Borowitz Illustrations by Noah Phillips hen Billy Zylberberg thought about his childhood, he realized that

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Got some leisurely reading time on your hands this Hanukkah season? We’ve got you covered. As the year winds to

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Editor’s Note: This story is part of our yearlong anniversary coverage of Jews’ involvement in the American Civil Rights Movement.

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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 his head covering, would be ...

Longtime science lover Adam Ruben spends his days in a lab coat, peering down a microscope in search for a

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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 lives of millions of people. ...
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 so many Jews—some 600,000 according ...
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 events than mere facts can ...

Knish: In Search of the Jewish Soul Food Laura Silver Brandeis University Press 2014, pp. 275, $24.95 by Gloria Levitas Reader alert:

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Thanks to all who joined us for a spectacular night of festivities and feting in honor of musical and acting

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