04
Feb
Alice Shalvi: Mother of Israeli Feminism
In Never a Native, Alice Shalvi, a founding mother of Israeli feminism, has written a book that is both inspiring and painful.
29
Jan
LISTEN: Robert Siegel Interviews Zachary Leader
Robert Siegel spoke with Zachary Leader, author of the new biography The Life of Saul Bellow: Love and Strife, 1965-2005, at a bookstore in Washington, DC. Bellow “has fantastic mimetic powers, imaginative powers,” Leader says, “and he created a range of reference in his language that was new and more fairly American than the style of his predecessors.” Read the full interview from our latest issue here.
29
Jan
What Will Be the Fate of the House of Fates?
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By
Liam Hoare
The House of Fates is ground zero in a struggle over history and memory, raising questions that are pertinent today not only in Hungary but also across post-communist Europe. The struggle is about the politicization of the Holocaust by an increasingly autocratic government and about who gets to tell its story, and how.
28
Jan
Five Things to Know This Week: With New Bill, Anti-Semitism Remains a Partisan Issue
Last week, Republican Lee Zeldin introduced House Resolution 72. Its title, “Rejecting anti-Israel and anti-Semitic hatred in the United States and around the world,” should have promised a wide bipartisan group of co-sponsors rushing to sign on.
28
Jan
Manna Is Real and Not So Heavenly
The description of manna in the Bible matches what Danin found in the Sinai Desert. He soon discovered that the white drops on the shrub’s stems were the digestive byproduct of insects that feed on the plant’s sap, known as honeydew. The secretion, formed at night, is loaded with sugar. The sweet liquid hardens to the form of white granules and is still collected from spring to early fall in many places in the Middle East today.
25
Jan
Book Review | The Life of a Library
In Prince of the Press, Joshua Teplitsky brings us inside David Oppenheim’s library to explore the ways this collection both reflected and shaped the intellectual heritage of Central European Jewry.
25
Jan
Book Review | Hollywood’s Proud Zionist
The great French film director Jean-Luc Godard called Ben Hecht a “genius” who “invented 80 percent of what is used in Hollywood today.” Yet most modern American Jews have likely never heard of Hecht, despite his eminence as a playwright, best-selling novelist and screenwriter of a host of Hollywood film classics.
25
Jan
Book Review | The American Jewish Identity Crisis Rages On
American Jews may not know their way around the Talmud or much about Jewish history, but they sure do excel at soul-searching and have for many, many years. In the late 19th century, in the mid-20th and again in our own day, taking the community’s pulse—and finding it weak and listless—has been a common pursuit and a constant refrain.
25
Jan
At 81, a Greek Holocaust Survivor Looks Back
“What are your earliest memories of Greece?” I ask. He does not hesitate. “Running and hiding with my mother,” he says. “Hiding and running.”
24
Jan
The Vilification of George Soros In Israel
Billionaire George Soros has been accused of being anti-Israel and a Nazi collaborator. In the United States, Hungary, Israel, and some parts of American-Jewish community. This story tells how he became vilified.
24
Jan
Keeping It Real
How do high school seniors feel about their Jewish education? What have they learned about the world—and themselves? We asked Jewish day school students—from California...
24
Jan
A Guide to Sand Synagogues
Today, there are only five sand synagogues remaining in the world, three of them in the Caribbean.