The Passion of Passover
At the Passover seder, Jews across the world retell the greatest love story of all time: the story of what happened when God fell in love.
Einstein’s Hidden Spirituality
Biographers typically describe Einstein as a man who disdained Jewish rituals. But what if we have been given an incomplete picture of Einstein’s spirituality?
Is Normalization Normal?
“Keep reminding yourself: This is not normal,” warned comedian John Oliver on Last Week Tonight. It was less than a week after Election Day, and the country was just beginning to process Donald Trump’s unexpected victory. Opponents of the president-elect were scrambling to discern what had changed in a world they thought they understood.
Book Review // Yitzhak Rabin: Soldier, Leader, Statesman
A double myth about Yitzhak Rabin has prevailed since his assassination in 1995. For the Israeli right, his peacemaking attempts were and still are evidence of traitorous subversion. For the Israeli left, and especially to much of the outside world, his memory is crowned with rare nobility.
Book Review // Heretics
Leonardo Padura’s Heretics is a remarkable book. Padura, who is certainly the most prominent of a small number of Jewish Cuban authors, might also be the most famous writer in Cuba today. Best known in this country for his Inspector Mario Conde detective series...
The Best Books on World War I
On the anniversary of the United States' entrance into the war, here are some of the books marking the beginnings, the events of the Great War itself and some books on special areas of interest.
As Baseball Season Starts, Still Cheering for Team Israel
As the Major League Baseball season starts this week, some of us Jewish baseball fans are still reminiscing how well Team Israel did last month in the World Baseball Classic.
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.
Conservatives Admit Non-Jews—and No One Blinked
With only a few exceptions, the days are long gone when individuals are shunned by their communities and even disowned by their parents as a result of intermarriage.
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.