Jethro’s Legacy
Only five sections are named for biblical characters. In the fifth reading of Exodus, that rare privilege goes to Jethro: a non-Israelite, the father-in-law of Moses, and the priest of Midian.
At 81, a Greek Holocaust Survivor Looks Back
“What are your earliest memories of Greece?” I ask. He does not hesitate. “Running and hiding with my mother,” he says. “Hiding and running.”
A Gold Rush Synagogue Hangs On Down Under
More than a century and a half has passed since the gold rush created the booming Australian city of Ballarat, 70 miles inland from Melbourne. The gold is long gone, but the worshippers who sit shoulder to shoulder in the pews of Shearith Yisroel seem determined to live up to their synagogue’s name: “Remnant of Israel.”
The Thirty Years’ War’s Legacy for Religious Pluralism
The legacy of this half-forgotten conflict is an important one for those who care about religious freedom and religious pluralism today.
Book Review | The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary, 3 vols. by Robert Alter
The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary, 3 vols.
by Robert Alter
W. W. Norton
2018, 3500 pp, $125
When I first learned that Robert Alter had completed the...
A German-American Artist Searches for a Cultural Identity
“How do you know who you are, if you don’t understand where you come from?” Nora Krug asks toward the beginning of her stunning visual memoir, Belonging: A German Reckons With History And Home.
Time, Typewriters and the Adelmans
Mary Adelman’s typewriter repair shop kept Manhattan writers, both famous and obscure, working for more than 50 years. It’s been almost a year since her death.
Carl Lutz: Gently Shaking the World
While Jews honor heroes like Oskar Schindler and Raoul Wallenberg, the name of Carl Lutz is virtually unknown.
Book Review | Hitler’s American Friends By Bradley W. Hart
Hitler’s American Friends:
The Third Reich’s Supporters in the United States
By Bradley W. Hart
St. Martin’s/Thomas Dunne Books
2018, 304 pp, $28.99
Four days after Pearl Harbor and the...
Rediscovering and Restoring Cape Verde’s Jewish Heritage
Four large and heavy commemorative bronze plaques wait in storage at the Praia airport in Cape Verde, an archipelago of ten tiny islands 300 miles off the coast of Senegal in West Africa.
The Weird and Wondrous World of Jews and Magic
The first time I came face-to-face with Jewish magic was when I moved to Israel in my early 20s. It was the fall of 1995...
The Not-So Lost Cause of Moses Ezekiel
The Jewish Sculptor’s Confederate Statues Have Become a Beacon for White Supremacists.