Books
21 Oct
Arts & Culture, Latest, Uncategorized

What We’re Reading: George Johnson

Here, we share what Moment editors are reading and watching, from news to novels. Up this week is senior editor George Johnson, who recently explored the Jewish origins of the evil eye for our September/October issue. Johnson has been immersed in the literature and history of World War I of late, in honor of its 100th anniversary.  Lawrence in Arabia (not of Arabia), by Scott Anderson. This history of the World War I takes an unusual perspective: the war for the Ottoman Empire and the unexpected roles four intelligence agents played in it. T.E. Lawrence is the young British officer who formed his own Arab armies to defeat the Turks; Kurt Prüfer is a German agent who schemed to bring the Arabs to the German side; William Yale is an American oilman-turned US military intelligence liaison; and Aaron Aaronsohn is a Palestinian-Jewish agronomist who organized...

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Eileen Lavine Headshot
19 Aug
Arts & Culture, Latest, Uncategorized

What We’re Reading: Eileen Lavine

Each week, we'll take a look at what Moment editors are reading, from newspapers to novels. This week we hear from Eileen Lavine, a senior editor at Moment since 2008 who has previously been a writer and editor for the New Bedford Standard Times, The New York Times Youth Forums, and UNESCO. Is there ever a point when we say "enough" or "too much" with books on the Holocaust and concentration camps?  On the contrary, I find myself  haunted by the "what if," especially with stories of young girls who were my age at the time.  As time passes and survivors soon will no longer be here to tell their tales, it is necessary for all the stories to be told, as Francine Prose stresses in her introduction to Helga's Diary: A Young Girl's Account of Life in a Concentration Camp, which...

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06 Aug
Arts & Culture, Latest

What We’re Reading: Dina Gold

Each week, we’ll share what Moment editors are reading and watching, from news to novels.  Here, Moment senior editor Dina Gold, originally from London, tells us what’s attracted her interest.   Since Moment published an e-book on Anti-Semitism in April, the press has become awash with reports of the phenomenon now rampaging across Europe--such as this in The New York Times and this in Canada’s Globe and Mail. In his opinion piece "Why Americans See Israel the Way They Do," Roger Cohen begins: “To cross the Atlantic to America, as I did recently from London, is to move from one moral universe to its opposite in relation to Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza.” He concludes his piece by reflecting that “I am pleased to have become a naturalized American.” As a recent new American myself, I wholly endorse...

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