As I was shown into the interfaith spiritual center of the University of Chicago’s Rockefeller Chapel to my first Beit Midrash (house of learning), I...
Arab-Israeli conflict. Three words that are charged with so much emotion and meaning. Everyone has an opinion (a staunch one at that), everyone has taken...
In Queen Esther's Garden: An Anthology of Judeo-Persian Literature
A lot of reading this week. First, a book on Judaeo-Persian literature. There turns out to be...
The rabbi is dancing and singing, his congregation swooning, his synagogue…absent. We are watching an actor only pretend to be a rabbi and are sitting...
The English Girl, Daniel Silva’s most recent novel featuring Israeli super-spy (think James Bond meets Jack Bauer) Gabriel Allon, tries to break out of the...
Mimi Sheraton, restaurant critic for the New York Times from 1975 to 1983, hasn’t stopped writing about food: Sheraton’s memoir, Eating my Words, came out...
Yoram Kaniuk, the prize-winning Israeli author and peace activist who passed away last week, often ventured well beyond the national consensus with his controversial views...