Book Review | The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary, 3 vols. by Robert Alter
Author Interview | Judea Pearl
Book Review | Dear Zealots: Letters from a Divided Land by Amos Oz
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.”
Book Review | The First Book of Jewish Jokes edited by Elliott Oring
The Not-So Lost Cause of Moses Ezekiel
The Jewish Sculptor’s Confederate Statues Have Become a Beacon for White Supremacists.
Moment’s Guide to Film Festivals
Author Interview | Alfred Moses
When Alfred Moses, an attorney and prominent national Jewish leader, traveled behind the Iron Curtain to Romania in 1976, the impoverished country was under the thumb of the ruthless and corrupt dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. The trip changed Moses’s life, inspiring him to fight for the freedom of Romania’s Jews.