Hanukkah Lights // Lesley Hyatt
A Hanukkah Story (miracle, included)
By Lesley Hyatt
On the morning before Hanukkah begins, I walk outside and see Nena Sara laughing over my little brothers, Matan...
Hanukkah Lights // Andy Borowitz
The First Hanukkah
By Andy Borowitz
Illustrations by Noah Phillips
When Billy Zylberberg thought about his childhood, he realized that Hanukkah would have meant more to him if...
Moment Editors’ Book Picks of 2014
Got some leisurely reading time on your hands this Hanukkah season? We've got you covered. As the year winds to a close, we asked our...
Mendy Samstein (1938-2007), Unsung Hero of Freedom Summer
Editor's Note: This story is part of our yearlong anniversary coverage of Jews' involvement in the American Civil Rights Movement.
By Dina Weinstein
In the winter of...
Talk of the Table // Latke
Growing up by the sea in Belle Harbor, New York, five decades ago, I never heard of a Hanukkah doughnut. In my Ashkenazi family, Hanukkah fare was potato latkes, served with sour cream and my mother’s freshly made applesauce, or as an accompaniment to brisket.
Talk of the Table // Olive Oil
It’s the time of the year when we begin to talk about oil. Not just the kind that heats homes, but the kind that burned in the Tabernacle of the Temple—that is, olive oil.
Fiction // Lecha Dodi
Lecha Dodi // According to tradition, Mordechai led the way. When the day was expiring, he emerged from his house in white garments. The cares of the working week fell away, and he prepared with discreet joy for the Sabbath. His hair, just visible under his head covering, would be moist from immersion in the ritual bath.
Unrecognized Genius
Moment remembers DNA pioneer Rosalind Franklin, economist Anna Schwartz & comedy writer Lucille Kallen—three of the many women who did not receive the accolades they deserved in their lifetimes.
6 Questions for Comedian-Slash-Scientist Adam Ruben
Longtime science lover Adam Ruben spends his days in a lab coat, peering down a microscope in search for a malaria vaccine. But by night,...
Ask the Rabbis // Arrogance
Are there aspects of Judaism that encourage arrogance—or that help guard against it?
Book Review // The Talmud: A Biography Banned, Censored and Burned…The Book They Couldn’t Suppress
Full disclosure: I am not a biblical or Talmudic scholar. As a professor of literature, I have taught selections from the Bible in humanities courses. I think of myself as a secular humanist and an agnostic interested in understanding the role of religion in the lives of millions of people.
Book Review // Village of Secrets: Defying the Nazis in Vichy France
French anti-Semitism, c’est une vieille histoire. True, following the Revolution, les Juifs were liberated from their ghettos. True, the Jewish Leon Blum was elected prime minister of France during the late 1930s. And true, except for the United States and Israel, no other country contains so many Jews—some 600,000 according to the latest statistics.