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The Story of Sergey Brin

16:14 06 May by Mark Malseed

It takes a bit of searching to find Sergey Brin’s office at the Googleplex. Tucked away in a corner of Building #43 on this sprawling campus near the southern tip of San Francisco Bay, past rows of colorfully decorated cubicles and dorm-like meeting spaces, Office

A House Divided

14:55 01 May by Eve Fairbanks

Following the end of apartheid, students living in the dorms of the University of the Free State in South Africa heartily embraced integration. At first it went well, then the students chose to resegregate. What caused social progress to surge forward and then reverse course?

Nathan Guttman: Between Iraq and a Hard Place

18:04 27 March by Nathan Guttman

Why is America’s strongest faith-based bloc that opposes the war—the Jewish community—sitting this conflict out? From the front lines of the civil-rights movement through the Vietnam War protests and up to the campaign to stop genocide in Darfur, American Jews have never been shy about

Solar Eclipsed?

14:05 28 February by Sarah Breger

Thanks to Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, the Jewish state was a pioneer in solar power. Now some of the country’s brightest solar innovators say they are being held back by red tape and a lack of government support.

Bell Man

15:50 08 February by Mandy Katz

One of the last in a lineage of great Jewish violinists, this “farm boy” of the American heartland drives a Porsche and plays the world’s most famous “Jewish” violin. Joshua Bell’s tall frame tilts sideways on the sleek gray banquette of the Tamarind Tea Room,

Fiction | A Beggar’s Place

19:53 15 January by Ruchama King Feuerman

It’s raining again, and Estrella takes her green umbrella with her. Six, seven years ago, when she could afford to catch a cold now and then, she left her umbrella back at her apartment, deliberately. Only a cruel person would refuse to give a few

At Home With Norman Podhoretz

02:00 03 January by Robert S. Greenberger

Having abandoned the left six decades ago, The 83-year-old former editor of Commentary and grumpy grandfather of the right is still waiting for the majority of American Jews to follow suit. A youthful Norman Podhoretz, with abundant black wavy hair, looks out from a sepia

Elephant in the Room | How Has Anxiety Affected You, Your Family or the Jewish People?

21:34 31 December by Moment

Our second annual Elephant in the Room Essay Contest—in partnership with the Andrew Kukes Foundation for Social Anxiety—seeks to lessen the stigma surrounding anxiety by encouraging discussion of this important topic. The winning essays, plus finalists and selected excerpts, appear below. WINNING ESSAY For most

Jewish Word | Tsuris

21:34 31 December by Eileen Lavine

Nobody Knows the Tsuris I’ve Seen… “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen,” laments an African-American spiritual. In Yiddish, this feeling is encapsulated by the word tsuris—variously defined as troubles, worries, aggravation, woes, suffering, grief or heartache. In other words, “tsuris is what nudniks have and

Uncle Xenon: The Elemental Oliver Sacks

02:40 31 December by Nadine Epstein

Oliver Sacks opens the door of his lower Manhattan apartment himself because his assistant, Kate Edgar, is in the emergency room with a twisted ankle. He looks somewhat befuddled, although he is expecting us. He is neither tall nor short, slightly round in the middle