On Being a Jewish American Writer in 2018
On November 12, Erika Dreifus presented the Creative Keynote Address at the 24th Annual Jewish American and Holocaust Literature Symposium in Miami.
Back to the Future: 21st-Century Zionism via the Negev
Moment conducted an interview with Doug Seserman, who became the chief executive officer of American Associates, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev last year. He has a new vision of what the American organization means to Israel and to American Jewry.
Who’s Afraid of the New Democrats?
With a class of politicians more diverse than American politics has ever seen, Democrats feel better positioned now to claim the mantle of representing the new America: young, feminine, of many races, ethnicities, genders and faiths.
Six Women Who Are Breaking Israel’s Glass Ceiling
Rivka Carmi
In 2006, Rivka Carmi became the president of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU), making her the first woman to serve as the president...
Is This Mysterious Language Hebrew?
The Voynich manuscript is not written in any known language, and its 35 or so unique symbols have never been seen elsewhere.
Jewish Word | Shamash
n the 1946 film The Big Sleep, based on the Raymond Chandler mystery of the same name, Carmen—the promiscuous, drug-addicted younger sister of Lauren Bacall’s character—sizes up Philip Marlowe, played by Humphrey Bogart, and asks him, “What are you, a prizefighter?” Bogart responds, “No, I’m a shamus.” “What’s a shamus?” she inquires. “It’s a private detective,” he answers. Yes, Bogart is using the Yiddish version—more popularly spelled “shammes”—of the Hebrew word, “shamash.”
Time, Typewriters and the Adelmans
Mary Adelman’s typewriter repair shop kept Manhattan writers, both famous and obscure, working for more than 50 years. It’s been almost a year since her death.
Carl Lutz: Gently Shaking the World
While Jews honor heroes like Oskar Schindler and Raoul Wallenberg, the name of Carl Lutz is virtually unknown.
Book Review | Beirut Rules
Reading Beirut Rules takes us back to the unhappy 1980s when American diplomats, spies, and the military would be assigned to the Middle East—a complex and dangerous region that very few of them understood—and became sitting ducks for increasingly sophisticated terrorists who were financed and directed by Iran.
Illustrated Book Review | Belonging by Nora Krug
Belonging:
A German Reckons with History and Home
Nora Krug
Scribner
2018, 288 pp., $30
All drawings by and photos courtesy of Amy Kurzweil, inspired by Nora Krug
What Do the Numbers of Jews in Congress Mean? Not Much
For all its political sophistication and savviness, the Jewish community still takes great interest in the bottom line: How many Jews got in?