Moment
When Jack Miles approached me with the proposition to edit the Judaism volume of the projected Norton Anthology of World Religions, I was naturally flattered but also confounded. There are, of course, many anthologies of Judaism in different formats. But the Norton anthologies are different.
Moment
“Listen,” says Tomás to his daughter, Daniela. “I know what you wrote.” Tomás is an academic, a Czech, who got out of Prague before the fall of communism, along with his wife, Katka, and baby Daniela. Now, he’s teaching at a two-bit college in Maine, divorced from Katka when their little girl was only two, and nearly estranged from his grown daughter, now a playwright. As “The Quietest Man” begins, Daniela has sold her very first play—and her father, the tale’s narrator, is determined to use her good fortune to reconnect with her…
When Brent Delman was growing up in Cleveland, his culturally Jewish family, like their Eastern European forebears, ate lots of soft, fresh cheese—cream cheese, sour cream, cottage cheese—without worrying much about whether it was kosher. After all, cheese is just curdled milk, and as long as it’s not eaten with meat, what could be treif about it?
Moment
We live in the era of Jewish historical fiction. Hundreds of novels set at some point in the long Jewish past have been published in recent years, some based on biblical stories or Jewish folk tales, others built around major historical figures. The phenomenon shows no sign of slowing, with readers continuing to greedily devour historical fiction, and writers delighted to feed their addiction.
Moment
Ben Cohen
Blaming the Jews, Again: European intellectuals have come up with a nasty new twist to anti-Semitism.
Islamophobia, The Flip Side of Anti-Semitism: We Jews need to be careful about diminishing and defaming Muslims.
Pity the Israeli Voter: No matter which party is in power, Israelis will end up disappointed.
The ground is lurching beneath the feet of European Jews, with anti-Semitism rising up around them. We American Jews are rightly concerned at this alarming turn of events. We fear the spread of this new, especially virulent form of anti-Semitism to our own shores. We feel disgusted but helpless. What can we do?
Sala Levin
Regardless of the outcome of Israel’s general elections on March 17, the campaign for the 20th Knesset will be remembered for its verbal brutality, rhetoric shallowness and viral viciousness. Never has an Israeli election been so devoid of serious debate on the core issues. Whether Netanyahu or Herzog and Livni win at the polls, the main loser is already known: rational debate and communal ethos.
Sarah Breger
An Israeli voter is not to be envied. So many parties to choose from, so many promises to be tempted by—the voter knows that most of these are empty promises—and so many post-election scenarios to take into account.
