A Jewish Timeline of World War I
April 6, 1917 is the official date for America’s entry into World War I, and over the next 19 months, some 250,000 Jews served in the American armed forces. Through this timeline, explore some of their stories.
George Eliot Also Grappled With Feminism and Zionism
Just as Daniel Deronda probes the limits and possibilities for women in Victorian England, it addresses a different set of concerns regarding Jewish self-determination in Palestine.
The First Zionist Novel?
George Eliot’s ‘Daniel Deronda’ was written in 1876, 21 years before Theodor Herzl founded the Zionist movement—to the astonishment and delight of many contemporaries, and of many Jews ever since.
Learning From the Swastika Epidemic of 1959
I feel oddly comforted by remembering that, while purveyors of anti-Jewish sentiments have always pressed their advantage during unsettled political times, they always vanish back into their netherworlds.
The Jewish Photographer of Ghetto Life
From 1940 to 1945, Ross was the official ghetto photographer, tasked with providing a picture of every prisoner. About 3,000 of his images survive.
Book Essay // Refracted Identities, Mirrored Lives
Suleiman’s new book, The Némirovsky Question: The Life, Death and Legacy of a Jewish Writer in 20th-Century France, explores Némirovsky’s tragic career and the deteriorating civil society of pre-World War II France that first nurtured the writer and then ultimately turned on her. Drawing on parallels to her own life, Suleiman makes of the story a meditation on allegiance, foreignness and assimilation—one with uncanny echoes for today’s politics.
Is Democracy Broken?
28 years ago political philosopher Francis Fukuyama famously declared “the end of history,”meaning that there would be “the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.” It was a heady time. The Berlin Wall was poised to fall…
Boublil & Schönberg: The French Duo Behind Two Broadway Megahits
The helicopter has landed—again. Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg’s musical behemoth Miss Saigon returns to Broadway this March after a 16-year hiatus.
Moment Fiction // Cuba
1936: He has been called “distinguished gentleman” and “filthy Jew”; the former is better, of course. Turn by turn he has been treated with civility or contempt.
The Delectable Dumpling Diaspora
Their seemingly modest appearance belies their multicultural significance, manifold incarnations and long history.
The Polish Republic of Untruth
It didn’t take long for the recently elected government to have a troubling impact on the state of the country’s democracy.
Jewish Word // Blood libel
In September, Josh Marshall of the online political news outlet Talking Points Memo reached for an unexpected metaphor to express his disgust at Donald Trump’s anti-immigration rhetoric…