American Jewish Literature: Dead or Alive?
With
Gal Beckerman / Nicholas Delbanco / Nathan Englander / Rebecca Goldstein / Allegra Goodman / Mohsin Hamid / Dara Horn / Aaron Lansky / Ruby Namdar / Alicia Ostriker...
The Lioness Roars Again: Golda Meir at 120
Although she was a trailblazer, second-wave feminists in the 1960s disliked her, and she returned their ire, describing them as “crazy women who burn their bras and…hate men.” Meir resented attempts to turn her into a feminist icon.
Jewish Word | When a Knish Is More Than a Knish
During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump proclaimed at a rally that Hillary Clinton “got schlonged” in the 2008 primaries. Schlong, when used as a noun, is a Yiddish word for penis—and a pretty vulgar one at that. But when used as a verb, is it even a word?
Mohammad bin Salman: The New Face of Saudi Arabia’s Monarchy
Is the brash young crown prince a liberalizing reformer or a repressive hard-liner? And what does this mean for his kingdom’s relationships with the United States and Israel?
An Artist’s Secret, Now Fully Revealed
When Charlotte (called Lotte by her family) was eight years old, her mother died. At the time she was told the cause was influenza—the truth was kept a carefully guarded secret.
Talk of the Table | A Tu B’Shevat Seder for Mystics
The epigram, “They tried to kill us. We survived. Let’s eat!” sometimes serves as a tongue-in-cheek synopsis of Jewish holidays: Passover, for example, recounts the original Jewish survival story in an extended banquet punctuated by four cups of wine.
The Legal Future of #MeToo
No reporter likes to be sucked into a story she’s covering. But when a Washington Post article late last year quoted two law clerks by name who said that Judge Alex Kozinski of the Ninth Federal Circuit Court of Appeals had shown them pornography in his chambers, while four other unnamed women described other inappropriate behavior by the judge, Dahlia Lithwick decided to speak up.
Ask The Rabbis | How Would You Counsel A Sexual Predator?
In every contact with serial bullies, victimizers or predators, we must carefully balance natural empathy for the person before us with solidarity and justice concerning...
Book Review | In Days to Come: A New Hope for Israel by Avraham Burg
Zionism has always been a fiercely ideological movement. Socialist Labor Zionism gave rise to Israel’s Labor Party and to many of Israel’s best-known leaders, such as David Ben-Gurion, Levi Eshkol, Golda Meir and Yitzhak Rabin.
Book Review | Eternal Life by Dara Horn
Dara Horn’s new novel, Eternal Life, imagines two characters who have made a sacred pact that consigns them to lives that will never end. Tethered to wearying and repetitive perpetuity, they cannot encounter the crossover from purpose to purposelessness that my mother-in-law experienced.
Book Review | What Is It All But Luminous: Notes from an Underground Man by Art Garfunkel
“I have these vocal cords. Two,” the singer Art Garfunkel writes near the start of his intriguing book of impressionistic musings about his life, “They have vibrated with the love of sound since I was five and began to sing with the sense of God’s gift running through me.”
Opinion | Symbolic, But Destructive
President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and direct the State Department to begin moving the U.S. embassy there has given rise to a slew of commentary.