19
May
May/June 2014 Table of Contents
FEATURES THE ADELSON EFFECT Billionaire Sheldon Adelson is best known in the United States for his outsized contributions on
08
May
Book Review // Interview | Serge Schmemann
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By
Gritt
Book Review // Interview | Serge Schmemann Ari Shavit: An Insider’s Guide to Zionism Ari Shavit’s book, My Promised Land,
07
May
Jewish American Heritage Guide // Food
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By
Rachel Gross
Long ago, a few Jewish foods made themselves an indispensable part of the way Americans eat. So thorough was their assimilation that their popularity swiftly overshadowed their cultural origins. (These days, who thinks “Jewish” when they reach for their bagel and schmear?)
06
May
The Adelson Effect
Billionaire Sheldon Adelson is best known in the United States for his outsized contributions to Republican presidential candidates. But in Israel, where he owns two newspapers, he may wield far more influence.
06
May
BOOK REVIEW | BARBARA PROBST SOLOMON
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By
BOOK REVIEW | BARBARA PROBST SOLOMON In Search of Peace at Auschwitz Peter Matthiessen (who died this April at the
05
May
Ask the Rabbis // Addiction
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By
Moment
INDEPENDENT: Addiction is highlighted in the Torah’s account of the Revelation at Mount Sinai, where the One Who Spoke and the World Came into Being instructed us not to get so caught up in our subjective assumptions about God that we would carve out and worship an image reflecting those assumptions.
05
May
Can Religious Pluralism and an Official Rabbinate Coexist in Israel?
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By
Moment asks a wide range of scholars, activists and religious leaders to suggest if and how religious pluralism and the chief rabbinate can coexist
21
Mar
A Symposium on Anti-Semitism: Where does it come from and why does it persist?
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By
Sala Levin
A symposium with: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Michael Barkun, David Berger, Bent Blüdnikow, Robert Chazan, Phyllis Chesler, Jeremy Cohen, Irwin Cotler,
04
Mar
Book Review // Little Failure: A memoir by Gary Shteyngart
The title, Little Failure, is of course ironic. By now, after Gary Shteyngart’s three best-selling comic novels, many travel articles and dozens of interviews—in which he rarely gives a straight answer—his Russian Jewish immigrant parents must have forgiven him for not becoming the lawyer or accountant they envisioned. Or have they?
04
Mar
The Secret History of X & O
An investigation into the religious roots of the symbols for hugs & kisses.
04
Mar
James Kugel: Professor of Disbelief
When I was a teenager, there was a legend repeated in the Jewish schools of my hometown. If you somehow manage to get into godless Harvard, don’t go. But if, against your rosh yeshiva and rebbe’s advice, you actually go, whatever you do, don’t take biblical scholar James Kugel’s class. If you do, you’ll walk into Introduction to the Bible, see that the professor is wearing a yarmulke and assume the course is kosher. And, the story goes, you’ll walk out a heretic.
03
Mar
Fiction // The Nothing of History
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By
Moment Magazine-Karma Foundation Fiction // July was Reva’s month to fall apart. She slept through the alarm and ignored her husband’s attempts to rouse her. She showered sporadically. She added bourbon to her morning coffee. She stopped answering email, her cell phone, the door. She arrived late to the summer school class she was teaching and dismissed the students early.