Book Review | Secrets of a Musical Family
Mary Rodgers’s posthumous autobiography is a brash, outrageous and entertaining excursion into the life of its author.
Book Review | Studying Talmud with Beruriah
When the ancient rabbis had a question about the Torah—an important detail that seemed to be missing, an inconsistency between two passages, even a redundant word or verse—they would often solve the problem by writing a midrash, or story, filling in the missing piece or reconciling the seeming contradiction.
Book Review | Israel’s Star Turn
When the state of Israel turned 30 in 1978, its supporters in Hollywood threw a star-studded party. What changed?
Book Review | A Madcap Holocaust Holiday
An elderly Holocaust survivor dies and goes to heaven.
Book Review | The Temple of Whitefish and Lox
Lori Zabar’s new book reveals the family history behind the iconic grocery store.
Book Review | The Netanyahus Takes Off
When 41-year-old American novelist Joshua Cohen won the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction last week for his semi-roman à clef, The Netanyahus, the first question occurring to close observers of Israeli culture and politics wasn’t “Is it good for the Jews?” but “How bad is it for Bibi and the family brand?”
Book Review | Germany’s Time of the Wolves
A European country bombed into rubble. Refugees streaming across multiple borders.
Moment Brand Studio: Liza Wiemer Fights Antisemitism with “The Assignment”
In her latest young adult novel, The Assignment, author Liza Wiemer asks readers what they would do to stop antisemitism—or any form of hate or injustice.
Book Review | A Seder Reimagined By A Feminist Poet
The most formative experience of my college years wasn’t in a classroom.
Book Review | Amos Oz Looks Back at Literature
In the midst of a long conversation about men, women, love, sex and his own adolescence, the late Amos Oz reminds his interlocutor Shira Hadad that “the most important word in our whole conversation today is ‘sometimes.’”
Book Review | Half a Century Ago, a Hostage Rescue That Gripped the World
Thirty members of the Sayeret Matkal, the elite commando unit of the IDF that rescued hostages from a hijacked flight in Uganda, share their memories of the rescue in a book, newly translated from the Hebrew.
Book Review | The Ripples Before the Storm
Munich in the years following World War I was a nasty, bloody microcosm of the political catastrophes in Europe that preceded and followed Germany’s defeat in that war.